In our sporting corner of the world, betting is everywhere.
Consider Major League Baseball: The league has official gaming partners, the broadcast home of its “Sunday Night Baseball” showcase boasts an official sportsbook, and the Dodgers’ World Series celebration was sponsored by a local resort and casino. On the television screen, the bottom line provides updates on odds as well as scores.
You can bet on the next pitch, the next home run, the next game, the next World Series. You might enjoy betting on sports, or you might disdain it.
Betting on tragedy? Profiting off the pain of our community? We all should condemn that.
Polymarket, which bills itself as a “prediction market,” invited you as of Thursday to stake some bucks on 18 questions related to the Southern California wildfires, including these: How many acres will the Palisades wildfire burn by Friday? Will the Palisades wildfire spread to Santa Monica by Sunday? When will the Palisades wildfire be 50% contained? Will all L.A. wildfires be fully contained before February?
“My guess,” said Nathanael Fast, director of the USC Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making, “is that most people don’t like the idea of individuals betting on or making money off disasters and catastrophes.”
Polymarket aims to set the chance of something happening, then harness collective opinion to adjust that probability in real time.
For instance, with the chance of the Palisades wildfire being 50% contained by Jan. 19 set at 86% on Thursday, you would take “yes” and could win $102 or would take “no” — on the same investment — and could win $571. The market adjusts the chance, and in turn the chance adjusts the market.
In a statement to The Times, a Polymarket spokesman said: “These markets address the same questions being discussed across cable news and X. We’ve proven that prediction markets can be an invaluable alternative information source for those seeking real-time quantitative data.”
Said Fast: “I have a hard time imagining that people are logging onto Polymarket to decide whether or not to evacuate.
“On the other hand, though, if they are able to demonstrate repeatedly in events like this that they really can generate accurate forecasts, I think it’s possible that, in the future, this could prove to be a useful tool.”
In the torrent of social media misinformation generated by an event and its immediate aftermath, prediction markets driven in part by social media run a risk of their own.
On its site, Polymarket says this is one criterion for the company opening a prediction market: “Is there social good or news value in understanding the probability generated by the market?”
Said Fast: “It could create the incentive to influence events or, in the case of wildfires, it could lead to a callous attitude toward others’ suffering. If we are gamifying life-and-death issues, it could really negatively influence culture and society in a way we don’t like.”
Polymarket offers odds on such topics as the NFL playoffs, whether Donald Trump will follow through on his pledge to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, whether Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift get engaged this year, and how many times Elon Musk will tweet in a given week.
All good. But this is not the first time Polymarket has used disaster as the basis for investment.
In 2023, after the submersible Titan was lost at sea en route to the Titanic, Polymarket asked: “Will the missing submarine be found by June 23?” Mother Jones found two investors, one who bet yes and one who bet no.
“Despite taking opposite sides of the bet, thanks to clever playing of the odds,” Mother Jones reported, “both … came away with thousands of dollars.”
Polymarket does not. According to the company spokesperson, Polymarket “does not charge fees on any market and currently does not generate any revenue.”
That might be the only thing worse than a company profiting off human misfortune: a tech startup enabling lots of people to profit off human misfortune.
The Polymarket statement to The Times started this way: “We express our deepest sympathies to everyone affected by these fires and appreciate the heroic work underway by first responders and everyday Angelenos.”
The statement is hollow so long as people still can stake their dollars on the calamities befalling everyday Angelenos. Polymarket should take down those wildfire odds. Those six historic words from 1954 ring true today: Have you no sense of decency?
The post Shaikin: Polymarket shouldn’t allow people to profit by betting on the L.A. firestorm appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
