Poll: Under what conditions is it ok (morally/philosophically) to bet on my own markets with an expectation/hope of profit?

Basic

Ṁ314

resolved Jun 19

56%15%

If you are explicit about what your intents are (example: "self-calibration: bet at your own risk", "self-incentive: buy NO to movitate me", "I will not bet on this market") and respect them

22%6%

Whenever you believe your market is mispriced

7%1.6%

If the outcome is not under your control and you don't have insider knowledge of the outcome and the resolution criteria are objective and you resolve honorably.

7%1.3%

Motivational markets. It's licit to create a market for whether you will accomplish a personal goal, and allow people to bet against you that you will accomplish it, provided you either only bet YES or are explicit in description.

4%1.3%

If I’m not in control of the resolution criteria, and the market is not made with the intent of “gain money”.

4%0.9%

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

6%Other

0.0%

Just do it

0.0%

Don’t do it!

0.0%

No betting on your own free markets

0.3%

Farming manna to subsidize more interesting markets

67%

Messed up, remaking this market so that title/description match

Resolves to answers which seem right, conscience wise. Would value discussion in the comments. Jun 17, 8:01pm: (I’m not ready to commit my conscience to the whims of the market, although I will use its advice. So by ‘resolves to answers which seem right, conscience wise’, I’m not necessarily saying that I’ll resolve to some statements that my conscience has predetermined agreement to; more, I’ll test suggestions against “is this good?” and if they’re compelling I’ll be more likely to commit to them) Jun 18, 9:53am: given that I put pool in the title but it doesn’t seem to match my intended resolution criteria (say, I haven’t invited people to vote in the comments…), how ought I to most honorably resolve this? Jun 18, 9:00pm: Hey I’m remaking this market because my description and the title (poll) didn’t match); if anyone lost manna or feel like betting on this wasn’t worth their time, lmk. I’m willing to tip up to “least multiple of 5 that’s greater than 2*(amount you bet)-profit”, or more if you have a good argument for it. Jun 18, 9:17pm: (including of course if ‘profit’ was negative/actually a loss!) Jun 18, 9:41pm: actually, if you contact me I’m changing it to “I’ll tip you up to the least multiple of five that’s greater than max(50, 2*amount you bet)-profit”, since I’m beginning to think i should’ve just resolved N/A and tipped people a flat rate for their time instead of what I actually did (which was farm manna from my own earlier market, and also try to use up the free liquidity from this one to cover up for my error). Might take me a while to fix this.

This question is managed and resolved by Manifold.

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To expand on that, it may sometimes be more fair to let other traders know why the market probability is wrong and give them the chance to move it first, but a few minutes is enough. Then go ahead and move it yourself.

Agreed. Just be nice and transparent in the description and in the comments. The market probability being right trumps all other concerns!

(and not seeking to profit from those ‘more interesting markets’)

@JoyVoid this is the most generally applicable answer for sure. Be honest about your intentions and stick to what you say you'll do.

@Angela I think that's fine, given that we can no longer set the initial probability.

(I realize this was not clear in the answer's text. I meant: If you say it _at market creation_ in the market's description)

To go further into this, I think it would be helpful to have a norm around this. This could be helped by the site's design by having a field "Do you intend to bet on this market" at market creation

Are you allowed to make the first bet? (and hence grab more shares of the expected outcome?)

@Angela I think if you were going to create the market anyway, the fact they made it free for you without you having a choice about it shouldn't matter. Less sure about if you're using free markets specifically out of wanting to make a profit from the free-ness!

@jbeshir is this an ok usage of free markets? or does the “free liquidity” dynamic change things?

I might be pragmatically misapplying a Bible verse here.

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