Accurately predicting disaster is actually quite useful, and prediction markets reward people for operationalizing information others don’t yet have.

Prediction markets seem to be everywhere these days. Now you can bet not only on the outcomes of sporting events, but also elections, wars, and natural disasters. Yet many people react to these markets with disgust. For instance, in a recent article in Jacobin, political commentator David Moscrop calls them “demented” and “grotesque.”

The main moral objection to prediction markets seems to be that it’s wrong to profit from someone’s misfortune. And intuitively there does seem to be something immoral about raking in thousands of dollars because you correctly predicted that a hurricane would hit a particular city or a particular war would break out, resulting in tremendous amounts of suffering. As Moscrop puts it, “Bettors will hold financial stakes in particular outcomes, including some of the most heinous events imaginable. It’s a fundamentally cynical and dehumanizing turn.” But as natural as the gut-level unease with prediction markets is, we shouldn’t trust it. Prediction markets are both useful and morally benign.

Prediction markets are useful precisely because they incentivize accurate forecasting. The prospect of making or losing money gives participants a strong reason to seek out new information and to process that information in an unbiased way. Think about sports betting. When you don’t have any money on the line, you probably indulge in wishful thinking that your favorite team is going to win this week, even though they’re 14 point underdogs. But if you suddenly stood to lose $1,000 if you turn out to be wrong, you’ll quickly start to think more rationally about the team’s chances.

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