An issue that was brought to my attention recently was that Polymarket is hosting a betting market where people can bet on if bitcoin ETFs will be approved.
The issue with Polymarket is that many people have actually lost a lot of money from its unfair market settlements in the past.
I wasn't aware of this platform until recently, but just by scrolling through their website I noticed that from the many markets they have, many users have been very disappointed with the unreasonable settlements that were given.
An issue I see with the platform is that people can see who bought how much of each market and hence whoever settles the market can make rulings in favor of their friends. This is a big conflict of interest. I noticed a good example of this in the
middle east section of the markets.
https://polymarket.com/event/did-israeli-intelligence-have-advanced-knowledge-of-the-attackThis above market specifically, showcases the bias of this platform. In spite of the fact that MAJOR news outlines, in and outside of Israel, as well as state actors coordinating with Israel, all published evidence that Israel had prior knowledge to the October 7 attack, the settlement of the market is going contrary to all evidence, denying truth directly.
Initially the market was swayed towards yes due to evidence. But then some people tried to manipulate the discussion adding to the terms (without authorization by market participants) "Israel knew the attack was coming,
but deliberately chose not to act".
Supposedly the market has been under a proposed settlement of yes, but some came and voted no after disputing it to sway it last minute.
For a market of around $600k USD, someone would have expected a settlement grounded in reality end evidence. Instead, just based on some people's voting power through the UMA platform, now many participants of this market will be losing a lot of money unfairly.
I've not used UMA or polymarket myself, otherwise I would be starting a scam accusation, but to me this is good enough evidence to warn people against using these services.