[FR] Offer users a free bet on a market

[bfinan]

As a market creator, I'd like to be able to attach free bets to a market, similar to the way "boosting" is done now.

• Market owners would be able to buy free bets on a market page, in a similar location to the "Boost" field
• Users would see the free bets as they scroll through the feed
  • For Yes/No markets, users could potentially be shown two buttons, "Free M$5 Yes Bet" and "Free M$5 No Bet", similar to the "Claim M$ 5" button for boosting
• Free bets would be constrained to one free bet per trader per market

This would allow market creators to directly purchase engagement on their markets. Discord discussion

[bfinan]

speculative visualization of the free bet buttons and form UI

[sipec]

This has been discussed a lot. Directly paying for bets is something people ask for a lot, but I continue to think it's mechanically fraught and makes the feed experience worse.

I think the best iteration would be to have 3 buttons to allow people to choose to get Y Yes shares, N No shares, or $M3. I think keeping the option to just take money is actually good, because the viewer may not want a position in the market, may not be interested enough or opinionated enough. This keeps advertisers honest and prevents spam, instead encouraging them to make markets that people will find interesting.

[bfinan]

[bfinan]

@sipec Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it! Let me know if you want me to take a crude swing at the dev work for this, or if the team wants help doing User Acceptance Testing (if this gets prioritized).