There is a reason they deal in crypto and are not headquartered in the US

Once upon a time, people went to jail for insider trading on the stock market. Like that was an actual thing that was enforced with rigor.

They aren't looking to prosecute many people https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-sec-says-it-file...

The insiders are the ones writing the laws though.

Or just don't gamble on a bet where insider swings can act against you. Simple.

There were people who bet against… if there’s no one on the other side to take the opposite bet, you don’t have a bet. And you won’t get a payout.

If an insider, say a member of the Department of Defense (or War, duh) bets a certain date: they could internally influence the decision to execute on that date rather than possibly a better (earlier?) date that could yield less damage or loss to either side.

Both https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading when people able to influence outcomes are able to bet on those outcomes.

It's a rigged game. If there's a bet that player X will foul player Y, without proper safeguards, player X can bet on himself and then intentionally player player Y. The actual harm is that by the rules of the betting, no one should know the outcome who could also bet on the game, so the losers are being robbed of their money.

In this particular context, it's also possible that there are illicit transfers of money without being immediately noticeable. Bribery could happen at the highest levels with it being very difficult to trace and prosecute.

Ignoring the gamblers losing money because they lack insider information, the harm is that you changed the incentive for war. It is motivated by money for the gamblers, not military or political objectives. The difference between this and rigged sports gambling is that people die. They die on a whim and they die unnecessarily. I shouldn’t have to explain why people dying is bad.

Insiders fleecing dumb people. Then dumb people get pissed their finances are destroyed and they'll never pay off their debt or support a family or attract a mate, and so they go down a rabbit hole of insanity and depression on social media, getting conned by influencers and AI slop and then vote for whatever the rage du jour some grifter politician is selling, or worse they shoot up a school...

2026, yeah baby!

Like any insider trading you are transferring money from the public to yourself. More interestingly for the prediction market angle: you are leaking secret information by doing that. If you make big trades in anticipation of specific events other market participants can see it. That could be extremely serious if say it endangers a military operation.

The only business at which Trump has ever really succeeded is money laundering. That might be a clue as to what is actually going on.

I wonder the same thing: who is taking the other side of these bets?

Probably not institutions, so it’s just retail gambling against insiders?