this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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290
Polymarket paid influencers to fake winning bets, built dummy websites to pull it off (www.techspot.com)
submitted 1 day ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 hours ago

I'm reminded of the early years of MMORPG games that had semi-functional economies, and all the confidence games came back. For example, a carnie would sell empty crates for a price on the promise that some of them were filled with valuable goodies. They weren't but occasionally a collaborator planted in the audience would win a prize.

Maybe we should bring back the tar-and-feather treatment.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 10 points 10 hours ago

Why are sites like this legal anywhere?

[–] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 33 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Everything is market manipulation, it is insanity.

[–] TheDeadInternet@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

Always has been 👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀

[–] nforminvasion@lemmy.world 20 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

That's capitalism. The greatest irony is that free market has been associated with capitalism. I'm personally not a huge free market fan anyways, as I think it carries it's own problems, but I find it funny that libs and cons think of free market as a capitalist society.

We have had 500 years of capitalism now and despite every single "please bro, just one more free market expefiment bro, it'll work this time", it always consolidates, cheats, corrupts and blackmails. Capitalism innately favors monopolies and manipulation over honest competition and equal ground for ideas.

In my, admittedly imperfect, view I feel like if some society really wanted an actual free market it would a socialist one. Where everyone is actually on equal footing, people have their basic needs met so they aren't focused on surviving, and people aren't born with more than others. From there, ideas and items could actually compete. If this hypothetical society kept money and markets, as described so far, and people's needs were met, then luxuries and unnecessary but enjoyable products could be sold in this situation.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone -2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

The current system is kind of just the default system that nobody really planned out or thought about carefully. Unemployment, suffering, homelessness, inequality, billionaires, etc, are all baked into how it works. But it kind of mostly sorta works good enough that nobody is motivated enough to do anything about it, plus it directly benefits anyone who could do anything about it.

It's rapidly reaching it's limit, though, especially with A.I. and most people's jobs being bullshit. I'm curious what the replacement will be, and I'm hoping the transition isn't too... painful.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 8 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Except it's not, it's intentionally maintained around a set of rules. Those rules resulted in it growing into this shape

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone -3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I didn't meant that there are no rules. I meant that if you dumped a group of people on another planet, in 1000 years they'd probably have capitalism again. It's just one of the the path of least resistance systems that seems obvious at scale. Nobody sat down and designed capitalism. It just kind of happened.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Native Americans lived in greater numbers for many thousands of years without developing capitalism. I think this speaks more to your worldview than reality.

Wealthy people most certainly sat down and designed the systems that allow capitalism to exist. It was not a unconscious effort. Did some things just fall into place? Perhaps but the hyper capitalism we experience now has a ton of law and policy created to allow it to exist the way it does.

A great example of this is the concept of the corporation. It took hundreds of years of lobbying and legal wrangling to get it to the point where they are now. Not time limited, no financial responsibility for shareholders or executives, does not have to be for the public good, personhood, etc.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone -2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah maybe. But I'm not really talking about nomadic ancestral living though. Plenty of villages in the country today are functionally communist, I've lived in one.

What I mean is it seems hard to have a system that has all the stuff we have today, without capitalism appearing at some point. Electricity, computers, trains, huge populations, cities, etc.

I'm trying to say that it's easy to implement, it seems obvious, and it benifits those in power. But it's inefficient and horrible long term and leads to problems. I think all the current laws and policy protecting capitalism were put in place to prop up a dying system. So rather than it being deliberate, I believe it's just a series of reactionary patch jobs that "fix" problems as they come up rather than anyone actually sitting down and designing a good system.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I would not liken the Iroquois Confederacy to nomadic ancestral living.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haudenosaunee

Imagine a system that has dramatically destroyed our environment while creating enormous wealth gaps and waste. Where some people live with dirt floors and some people have multimillion dollar yachts. Is this the system you are somewhat enamored with.

Did you know close to a billion people have died from pollution in the last fifty years? Would you say all these dead people share your sentiment.

Capilitism is not currency and commerce as those exist without capitalism. I don't think you can attribute anything you have said to the system of capitalism. Capilitism instead exploits these things for the minority. Imagine an Internet walled off by corporations, trains shut down because of the automobile lobby, electricity used up by data centers, etc.

The capitalists have definitely been designing the systems to their advantage. I think you are entirely correct about late stage capitalism. It is inefficient at distributing money and is leading to some enormous costs that would realistically take hundreds of trillions of dollars to remedy. The entire Earth is the equivalent of a Superfund sight with every single human being on earth poisoned by forever chemicals and plastics.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone -1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Sorry I don't really know anything about North American indigenous, I live in Australia and our mobs are very different. I think actually we're in full agreement, apart from the detail of whether it's "intelligent design" or not :)

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Fair enough. I get that you like your life and that it feels like it is hopelessly intertwined with capitalism. It is a modern day conundrum as I type on a device that a company that openly violates human rights made.

I can be both truthful and hopeful despite the enormity of the situation because that is just who I am. I personally will help everyone below me step up and I want everyone above me to take a step down. A little bit idealistic, I know.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone -1 points 4 hours ago

No I mean I think there was a miscommunication or something, I genuinely agree with everything you said except that 1 part lol. I'm not very good at explaining things, sorry

[–] radiofreebc@lemmy.world 114 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sounds like fraud to me. Good thing the US doesn't have laws anymore.

[–] winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 21 hours ago

There are definitely laws. They just don't apply to rich people

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 1 day ago

Yet another reason that these platforms are just a circlejerk of insider trading that no rational actor should take part in.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 day ago

Wow yeah that actually sounds quite illegal

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

It's all a scam? :O

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 points 9 hours ago

Yes. It's getting to where con-artists and theives just can't be trusted, anymore.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 10 points 1 day ago (4 children)

studies showing that most bettors lose money.

How do "most betters lose money"? The way I understand it there's a winner for every loser, no?

[–] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 25 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

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.

[–] quandang@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago

That means the wins are concentrated to a few while the losses are spread out

[–] PapaStevesy@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Throbbing_banjo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago

That winner is the house. Most players lose.

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

This is just a classic move for gambling platforms.