The Gambling Economy is not confusing

I am not the first to point out the “Gambling Economy” that has been rapidly emerging, but I may be the first to properly attribute why it is dominating in a spectacular fashion as opposed to other highly addictive trends.

To spew statistics that will surprise no one, prediction markets are expected to grow at 46% CAGR over the next 10 years, they have gone grown to massive industries in little over a year. The entire concept seems to be a vehicle for taking advantage of basic psychological weaknesses and going to be intensely problematic method of extracting money from poor people through insider trading.

Google Gemini 3 just launched, and there was massive amounts of capital predicting the date of the launch. As of June 30, 2025 Google has 183,000 employees.

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia referenced the 1-17 odds of him wearing a suit and tie to a meeting with President Donald Trump.

You can place bets on the price of assets that you control a large share of, you can predict the death of an individual. There are various insidious implications of the popularization of this market.

But despite my condemnations, and the disapproval of this market by nearly anyone who understands these potential issues, neither regulations on who can place bets, or what predictions are allowed is going to disrupt this massive, and growing industry.

The network affects are too strong for the age range and wealth level of victims to deal with. We as a society are already legitimizing these markets by citing them as a widely accepted method of poll metrics.

They are built into the fastest growing investment platform Robinhood. People love leverage, they love the satisfaction of being right, and getting paid for it. Sports gambling is a real problem, but most people do not have the power to impact the game that is being played, and those that do are under watchful eye of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Is the F.B.I. going to surveil every employee at every company?

Prediction markets are going to make very few people rich, and I suspect almost no one who is not already will make profit over the long term. However it is an amplifier for those who have insider knowledge, for those who are doing things that people care about.

The future contains many instances of people in power taking advantage of this, and whether the repercussions are significant and tied to the upside is going to be important.

The most important thing is realizing that the average person using these prediction markets is not a ultra-powerful individual with insider knowledge, but they are able to affect the things they bet on.

Popular social media accounts have the ability to spread misinformation that affects the odds of these prediction markets, therefore giving themselves favorable cash out options.

This entire system and idea is corrupt, hopefully I am wrong and people do not take advantage of this simple system and exploit the less fortunate. Poor people do not seem to stop buying lottery tickets simply because they haven’t won yet, and while few people would claim they trust Big Lotto it didn’t stop lottery ticket sales.