Online gamblers bet hundreds of thousands of dollars on whether the submarine that went missing on a recent expedition to the Titanic, in what online critics called a “dystopian” use of digital finance. Since Wednesday, people wagered at least $300,000 on the fate of the vehicle using the crypto platform Polymarket, Mother Jones reports. On the site, betters buy and sell shares on the outcomes of events using cryptocurrency, and can redeem their shares for $1 each if their guesses are correct. Follow the latest updates on the missing Titanic submarine here “For the purposes of this market, the vessel need not have been rescued or physically recovered to be considered ‘found,’” reads the description page for the submarine bets. “If pieces are located, but not the cabin which contains the vessel’s passengers, that will not suffice for this market to resolve to ‘Yes.’” One user, asking only to be identified by his first name, Rich, told Mother Jones he made around $3,250 betting. He argued what he was doing was morally defensible because unlike the regular stock market, it had no impact on the fate of the entity being wagered upon. “My answer would be that markets are fundamentally immoral. There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism,” Rich said. Others weren’t so sure. Social media users racked up thousands of likes criticising such gamblers. “Actually insane,” one commenter wrote. “Imagine making money off of if someone is gonna die or not.” Polymarket defended its offerings on the submarine, arguing that it was a neutral way of calculating the likelihood of a rescue. “If the families were privy to Polymarket, they could use the market as a way to obtain the real-time, unbiased probability of the submarine being recovered,” the company said in an email to Gizmodo. “That is a far more valuable service to them than sensationalist media coverage: with our markets at least they understand the true probabilities.” Bookmakers take bets on nearly everything, from sports to sex tapes, but the industry does have some lines regarding poor taste. According to Betting Gods, a gambling industry tip site, most major bookmakers refused to take bets regarding the death of Queen Elizabeth. “Major bookmakers won’t bet on the Queen dying as it would offend most of its regular customers. Whether they all agree with Britain having a royal family or not, most people would prefer to bet on a variety of other things such as sports,” the site wrote in an article. “When asked the question of why bookmakers won’t bet on what age the queen will die, the spokespeople of all the major bookmakers were unanimous in saying that it was important that people understand where the parameters of bad taste bets can’t be crossed.” Read More US launches prosecutions of Chinese companies on charges of trafficking fentanyl ingredients Titanic sub latest - Coast Guard makes stunning admission about ‘explosion’ when submersible lost contact OceanGate CEO said he was ‘personally insulted’ by ‘baseless cries’ about Titanic sub’s deadly safety flaws Federal court halts ‘suppressive’ Florida drag ban Florida's law targeting drag shows is on hold under federal judge's order Recovery could cost millions as Coast Guard stunningly admits submersible ‘explosion’

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WhatsApp might be getting ads, according to its boss. The company has categorically ruled out that it would be put advertising in the inbox. But it might come elsewhere in the app, such as WhatsApp’s “Status” feature, which works like Instagram stories. WhatsApp has long resisted introducing ads to any part of its platform. That sets it apart from other Meta platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, which heavily integrate advertising. WhatsApp has long been rumoured to be considering putting ads into its app, with rumours stretching back as long as five years ago. But it has largely resisted the temptation, in part because of worries about whether it would concern privacy-conscious users, whom WhatsApp has particularly targeted. In September, the Financial Times reported that it was looking at changing that. The company was evaluating whether it would work to show ads in the conversation list, the paper reported. Meta outright denied that it had been testing or working on that feature, or that it planned to. “We aren’t doing this,” WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said on Twitter. But in an interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha De S.Paulo, Mr Cathcart was asked whether the app would continue to be free and not show ads. And he said that some ads might come to other parts of the platform. The app will not put ads within the “messaging experience”, such as the inbox or chats themselves. Instead, it could come in other parts of the app, such as the Status feature as well as the new Channels tool that allows people to subscribe to messages from creators. The company could also introduce the option to charge people to subscribe to those channels, he said. That could also be advertised within those Channels. He did not give any firm information about when the feature would arrive, or any commitment that it would actually be introduced. Read More Political ads on Instagram and Facebook can be deepfakes, Meta says Instagram working to let people make AI ‘friends’ to talk to Big tech poses ‘existential threat’ to UK journalism, survey of editors finds

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