Someone allegedly used a hairdryer to rig Polymarket weather bets

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ccdrnsf about 4 hours ago 54 commentsRead Article on engadget.com

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Discussion (54 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

mdrzn•about 3 hours ago

Already discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208

hilariously•about 3 hours ago

"It sucks that someone potentially tricked a temperature sensor with a hairdryer to scam actual gamblers out of potential winnings" really missed a chance to say it blows.

stronglikedan•about 2 hours ago

in fairness, hairdryers have to suck so they can blow

moi2388•about 3 hours ago

That’s rather dry humour for such a hairy situation

lelandfe•about 3 hours ago

It went over my head, but I think they’re full of hot air anyway.

mmmlinux•about 2 hours ago

"actual gamblers"

nkrisc•about 3 hours ago

Gambling addicts will really gamble on anything, won’t they? It’s a bit strange to see degenerate gambling dressed up as “predictions”.

ineedasername•22 minutes ago

It’s not gambling, these are legitimate financial instruments designed to allow proper risk management through appropriately market-set pricing on the value of that risk mitigation, and it’s doing this in a way that democratizes risk management in a way previously inaccessible to the public.

j/k totally gambling

gwerbin•about 3 hours ago

This looks less like gambling addiction and more like a scam executed for profit.

SirFatty•about 2 hours ago

And who fueled the profits? Gamblers?

wongarsu•about 2 hours ago

This instance is what you could call a scam, maybe even fraud. But in the absence of manipulation or insider knowledge predicting the weather is pretty close to gambling. As is "does bitcoin go up or down in the next five minutes" or "how many tweets will Elon Musk post in the next couple days" (all real bets on Polymarket)

chneu•about 3 hours ago

Yes, gambling. That's literally what gambling is, a scam.

qup•about 3 hours ago

Gambling takes many forms.

If you and I flip a coin for $100, there's no scam.

close04•about 2 hours ago

A lot of gambling is a scam executed form profit. I call it a scam because it's not always fraudulent, it's persuasion and a dash of misleading info. Often one party unduly influences the outcome or has information that the other can't have. Whether it's corruption to predetermine the result of a match, or knowing that the star player will miss it, or a gambling machine that suggests a higher expected payout than the real one, or even a casino's rules that arbitrarily decide whether your win was legitimate or not, in practice the industry is more scam than legitimate business.

alansaber•about 3 hours ago

We rename everything to make it cooler to sell. Probably been a thing since the times of the sea people.

saghm•about 2 hours ago

Even the term "sea people" sounds cooler than "those dudes who live over there by the water"

gizajob•about 1 hour ago

Preferable to “the beaker folk of the Bronze Age”

troyvit•about 2 hours ago

I'm a "holy crap how do they keep getting the weather so wrong" addict and it's as irrational as being a gambling addict in that weather forecasts have improved a lot. I've never been tempted to gamble until now, where I realize I can put my money where my (irrational) mouth is.

All that said, gambling addiction is like a disease, same as any other. Holding folks who have it in contempt is about the same as holding alcoholics in contempt. It ignores the fact that it's a real affliction and not a lifestyle choice. Polymarket is taking advantage of that affliction.

cyclopeanutopia•30 minutes ago

You seem to ignore the fact that most people know how bad alcohol, gambling, cigarettes and other addictive things are, yet they still choose them and then suffer consequences.

If you asked someone whether they wanted to get ass cancer and they told you: "yeah, yolo", wouldn't it be a contempt-worthy choice? It would.

vrganj•16 minutes ago

How is it any different from the stock market?

(Whether you read this as a defense of polymarket or an indictment of shareholder capitalism might depend on your ideology)

xg15•about 2 hours ago

I think what's also telling is Polymarket's non-reaction to this. If there are obvious concerns that the outcome was manipulated, I'd expect them to invalidate the bet - otherwise they're effectively incentivising manipulation.

solumos•about 1 hour ago

Polymarket is simply an exchange for these sorts of “contracts” and the results are verified by a separate entity (it’s a DAO, which of course can be manipulated, and was the subject of controversy due to some Venezuela invasion-related “market” resolutions)

arealaccount•30 minutes ago

If anything this was great free advertising for their platform

mint5•about 1 hour ago

No no no, the outcome revealed new information as the market intends! That info is that people had discounted the rare weather event “a 10% chance of localized hairdryers” on the day in question. The bettor predicted this better than everyone else, making their info public by placing a bet!!! /s

cnj•about 3 hours ago

It never occurred to me that Goodhart's law could be applied to betting, but here we are :)

staplung•33 minutes ago

They said that Cobra would never acquire the pieces of the Weather Dominator. Now we’re doomed!

boringg•about 3 hours ago

Is there a bet available to determine if the weather forecasted was impacted by a hair dryer?

LeifCarrotson•33 minutes ago

That's effectively what all the 99% or 1% prediction markets are: a bet that an asteroid will destroy the planet or that the Rapture will occur or that we'll all upload our consciousnesses into computronium or whatever is not actually a bet that those events will happen (and that the site and enough of the economy will survive to allow you to collect and spend your winnings), it's a bet that the market will resolve incorrectly.

cosmojg•about 3 hours ago

That's not a bad idea. It actually sounds like it could be a very useful hedge/insurance play.

wongarsu•about 2 hours ago

That'd be easier to game than "will somebody run onto the field in the next $sports game". Just bet yes and bring a hair dryer. Make sure somebody posts evidence to X so you can cash out

Anon1096•about 2 hours ago

If the yes side is heavily favored because it's a "sure thing" then there will eventually be people who bet no and hire guards (or go themselves) to defend the weather sensor from the hairdryer-wielders.

swader999•about 2 hours ago

Finally some hacking news!

declan_roberts•about 3 hours ago

I can't believe there's no honor among the gamblers!

HeavyStorm•about 1 hour ago

If that happened, has a crime been committed? I don't think so. Well, maybe tampering with the thermometer might be a crime, but, on the gambling angle, I would say it's not.

AureliusMA•24 minutes ago

The betting contract depended on the Oracle's data for resolution. The Oracle's data was altered. The betting contract wasn't altered, however the social contract was.

JohnMakin•about 1 hour ago

If you cheat a casino, you go to jail.

boothby•about 1 hour ago

I imagine it'd be harder to find somebody using an infrared laser

Arn_Thor•about 2 hours ago

Maybe it's bad to let people bet on anything, huh

greatgib•36 minutes ago

Just to be clear, my understanding of news here is France is that there is an investigation for someone having possibly rigged the weather sensor but there was nothing release about how this could have been done.

The hair dryer thing is a joke, even if it is still a possibility, but just to say, it could be a cover, it could be a hot air gun, it could be a hack, it could be just luck, ...

Take care because there are ai generated videos of a guy with a hair dryer doing that, but these are fake!

damnitbuilds•about 1 hour ago

Is that better or worse than invading Venezuela to rig a Polymarket bet ?

ghstinda•about 2 hours ago

hilarious title, engadget is still quality after all these years

beepbooptheory•about 4 hours ago

Dupe from a little bit ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208

ChrisArchitect•about 2 hours ago

2 weeks old news OP

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47869664

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47878208

zobzu•about 3 hours ago

climate change via hair drier ;D

avazhi•about 3 hours ago

A fool and his money etc etc.

You love to see it.

Uptrenda•about 2 hours ago

lulz futures paying off as usual

mac3n•about 1 hour ago

is this what the cryptobros are doing now?