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Polymarket paid influencers to fake winning bets, built dummy websites to pull it off
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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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How do "most betters lose money"? The way I understand it there's a winner for every loser, no?
Bets aren't 1-1.
You can have one person with insider information win a seemingly impossible bet against 1000 people taking the other side.
The person who wins takes in a ton of money, and Polymarket takes a cut.
Each of those 1000 people all thought they had an easy win, but the only people winning these bets are people who either are the people making the decisions, or who are in the room with the people making those decisions.
Or they're in a position where they can affect the outcome, without being directly involved.
Like the recent controversies over people harassing a journalist because they'd made a bet, and then the journalist didn't report their desired outcome, or potentially interfering with weather equipment to win a bet.
That means the wins are concentrated to a few while the losses are spread out
No, take a lottery for instance: many people play, almost no one wins. You can bet on "anything" on Polymarket, like when or where an event is going to take place, so most of the time you're betting against the market. There's probably plenty of bets where no one wins at all. Everyone betting could spontaneously agree that Punxsutawney Phil is going to see his shadow (unlikely I know, but if only 5 people are betting, it's not that crazy), if he doesn't, no one wins. Except the site.
Its not a lottery though...
When you're betting on random bullshit and it's possible for no one to win, the difference between that and a lottery is negligible.
Anyone who believes it's not gambling.... I have a bridge to sell you.
No one said it's not gambling, I said it's not a lottery.
He never said it was in the first place
Who never said what?
That winner is the house. Most players lose.