Comment by gpm

> Why go through the "prediction market" at all then

It's there. It's not actually easy to find hitman for hire. This is a publicly advertised market for it.

Plausible deniability. We weren't paying for the witness to be murdered, we were expressing our confidence that no one would murder the witness.

Price discovery. The market tells you how much you need to pay a hitman (if you overpay hedge funds swoop in and take the difference, telling you for next time. If the hedge funds underestimate the cost they end up paying a significant penalty to the people who they prevented from hiring a hitman).

Crowd funding. The market means that every can chip in however much they want towards paying the hitman, and they only end up paying if its enough. In fact the middlemen who accepted the bets in the meantime may promise to pay some small amount of damages if enough isn't collected.

It is impossible to stiff the hitman, and there is no risk for the hitman that the "winds change". The hitman takes out the entire "yes" position before committing the murder. If it's not enough, they don't commit the murder.