Yeah, there are probably various methods you can use and precautions you can take to participate securely without leaking any significant information. But any such plans are necessarily more complicated and carry more risk of screwing them up than blanket abstention. As the importance of the secrets you have to keep goes up, the benefit of simplicity probably outweighs the benefits derived from participating in prediction markets, especially play money ones.
Where someone personally draws the line on whether to participate or not depends on: the relative value they place on keeping secrets, how many important secrets they have, how much benefit they derive from participating in prediction markets, and how much they enjoy implementing complicated information-theoretic secret-keeping schemes.
Yeah, there are probably various methods you can use and precautions you can take to participate securely without leaking any significant information. But any such plans are necessarily more complicated and carry more risk of screwing them up than blanket abstention. As the importance of the secrets you have to keep goes up, the benefit of simplicity probably outweighs the benefits derived from participating in prediction markets, especially play money ones.
Where someone personally draws the line on whether to participate or not depends on: the relative value they place on keeping secrets, how many important secrets they have, how much benefit they derive from participating in prediction markets, and how much they enjoy implementing complicated information-theoretic secret-keeping schemes.