Prediction Markets: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it in prediction-market threads as an accessible critical overview, including the Polymarket CEO's remarks on insider trading.
What it is
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment examines prediction markets such as Polymarket: the legal and moral questions, weak regulation, and insider trading and manipulation concerns.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2026 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends w-m · 2026-04 · on “'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win $34,000 Polymarket bet”
John Oliver had a segment on prediction markets this week. It covers insider training and opportunities for blatant manipulation like this, well worth checking out. The example in the Last Week Tonight segment was betting on dildos being thrown on court during a WNBA match. And then travelling to the match to throw the dildo. [0] [this video]
Cites e28eta · 2026-04 · on “'Hairdryer used to trick weather sensor' to win $34,000 Polymarket bet”
John Oliver just did a segment on prediction markets. [this video] Turns out the US federal regulator is not doing their job, and is actively trying to prevent US states from imposing regulations.
Cites otterley · 2026-05 · on “NPR finds "no sign" of Polymarket at its Panama HQ address”
The social costs of gambling, particularly compulsive gambling, cannot be so easily dismissed. I would encourage you to visit your local Gamblers’ Anonymous group or seek out addicts’ stories of loss and despair to get a fuller picture of it. As for expected losses, yes, there is a legitimate trade in securities in which some will earn money from their investments and some will lose money from them. Securities like stocks, bonds, derivatives, commodities, and so forth have real things of value underneath them, like business income and stuff made from the commodities. (And it’s not a minority who earn long-term gains from these; there are entire pension schemes covering millions of people tha
Cites MikeTheGreat · 2026-07 · on “What just happened to TheNumbers.com should worry us all”
Genuine question: do prediction markets open up a new revenue stream for TheNumbers.com? Specifically: they suspect that the motivation for trying to hack their site (for at least some people) is that they wanted early access to numbers that folks were betting on in prediction markets. Since they've got those numbers they can just bet on them, then benefit from their perfect knowledge. On the one hand this does seem incredibly unethical (it's clearly insider trading). On the other hand the CEO of PolyMarket has said that insider trading is part of the point of PolyMarket: [this video]