And polymarket isn’t even the wisdom of crowds lol. At its greatest possible adoption it’s still the wisdom of internet-connected (mostly) white men with time and money to spend on gambling.
The argument is that prediction markets incentivize insider trading and backroom power brokership. The “potential energy” behind surprise upsets is most profitably exploited when the outcome sharply differs from the public calibrated consensus, so these two incentives - calibration vs potential for exploitation - are in fundamental tension. I think this tension undermines the whole purpose of prediction markets IMO.
-- Cyborg Upton Sinclair