It’s possible I’m being a jerk, but actually maybe betting services could do a social good: allowing people who believe things despite all reason to incur some small cost to themselves and hopefully course-correct?
We can even both-sides this; Hillary fans and people who believe Jesus will come back soon are usually on opposing sides, right?
Prediction markets were initially proposed to provide a social good, the idea being that the ratio of the current price of a share in a prediction market to the value of that share if the market resolves to "yes" is how likely the market thinks the market is to resolve "yes" as a probability. The social good is that you could use this to predict the future.
The people who were “Yes” hillary stans were very much not hillary fans. very much the opposite. much of it seemed fueled by far right wing conspiracy theories
We can even both-sides this; Hillary fans and people who believe Jesus will come back soon are usually on opposing sides, right?