Collective immorality

According to a study cited by Cinco Días, 70.8% of users of the betting platform Polymarket lose money. At the other extreme, 0.1% concentrate 58.5% of the winnings and 1% accumulate 84.1%. Many enter thinking they are participating in an intelligent market. Very few take home almost all the money.Polymarket presents itself as a prediction market. Its users bet on future events: elections, judicial decisions, inflation, sports results, political appointments, or military conflicts.Betting on whether a footballer will score a goal, well, that's fine. But betting on whether the United States will launch missiles against Iran, honestly, I don't understand it. Even less so on a legalized platform.Its defenders use a fallacious argument. They claim that thousands of people, incentivized with real money, incorporate data, analyses, and intuitions. And that, thanks to this, the sum of all these bets results in a form of collective intelligence faster and more precise than any news or official communication from a public or corporate body.Let's see, betting on who will win an election already poses dilemmas. Betting on whether one country will bomb another opens the doors to immorality. Furthermore, leaked or insider information is an opaque advantage that turns into money.The U.S. Department of Justice announced charges on April 23, 2026, against a U.S. soldier accused of using classified information to earn over $400,000 on Polymarket through bets related to the military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.There were also suspicions surrounding bets linked to attacks against Iran. Several newly created accounts on Polymarket reportedly won around $1.2 million after betting, shortly before, that the United States would attack Iran before February 28, 2026.A market can be technically sophisticated and morally miserable. It can produce useful information and, at the same time, incentivize repugnant behavior. It can be called prediction, investment or financial innovation. But when someone makes money because other people will be bombed, captured or murdered, the word market falls short.What collective intelligence are we talking about? I would speak more of collective immorality. War already generates too many indirect benefits. Turning its probability or calendar into a direct bet goes beyond obscenity. The tragedy of others begins to have a price. Pain transforms into contract. And death, into an opportunity for profitability through gambling.How disgusting.