Predict Deutsche Bahn delays and win. Real-time prediction markets on ICE, IC & EC train delays.
Read the original article
Comments
Oh man, det er virkelig rigtigt sjovt!!! :-D
"Jurisdiction notice
For legal reasons, all BahnBet users, their devices, and their emotional baggage are hereby classified as legal residents of Schleswig-Holstein, the only German state where gambling is fully permitted.
This is non-negotiable. By creating an account, you have moved to Schleswig-Holstein. Your new postal code is 24103. You now speak rudimentary Danish."
By looperhacks 2026-03-0416:40 This is a reference to the weird situation that Schleswig Holstein was really the only state that allowed gambling until 2021 (there were exceptions). Every (legal) online gambling platform officially required you to be from Schleswig Holstein, otherwise, you were not permitted to join.
Of course, this went exactly as you'd think. However, since 2021, you can get a gambling license in all of Germany.
Fun fact: Since it's illegal to gamble with a non-licensed provider, using international platforms like polymarket can get you in trouble.
The copy on the site really is quite funny :D https://bahn.bet/about
By chrisandchris 2026-03-0421:19 That part is the most intersting in the imprint:
> 1010 Wien, Austria
By ostacke 2026-03-0415:52 Reference: https://youtu.be/ykj3Kpm3O0g
By strofocles 2026-03-0414:34 best comment this week, including the username
> In January 2026, Germany's federal court ruled that purchasing a Deutsche Bahn ticket constitutes a form of gambling (Glücksspiel), citing that “the probability of arriving on time is statistically comparable to a coin flip.”
> Rather than contest the ruling, DBSM embraced it. If riding our trains is gambling, then passengers deserve the right to hedge.
> BahnBet is our answer: a platform where you can bet against your own train, turning delays into suffering, and suffering into profit. Every minute of punctuality you lose, you can win back in deliciously valuable caßh.
I'll save everyone a web search. This is satire and there isn't any such German federal court ruling.
It also speaks to the world that we live in these days - I'm having a hard time separating satire from reality.
In all fairness, being both an avid Deutsche Bahn victim (with the Gold victim status), and knowing the German court system ... that was perfectly plausible, if a bit optimistic. I'd do many, many things if I got a 50% chance of arriving on time.
By mafuy 2026-03-0416:59 No joke: 15 years ago, when I was riding DB trains regularly, I got whole packs of refund forms. Took a while to find someone who would not refuse this request. I built a rudimentary transparent template in latex that had my name, address, etc. Pushed a whole pack into a printer to fill out most of the forms, leaving only the date and train to be manually inserted. My trains were always delayed, so this saved a lot of time.
Gold status? Does that mean you only have to fill in two pages of forms instead of three for refunds?
By hermanzegerman 2026-03-0417:531 reply If you actually took a train in the last 3 years you would know that the process is know online via the App/Website, and everything is already filled out for you
Sure. And then a few weeks later they send you a letter, asking all the information again which you have to send by mail.
Source: my train back from Amsterdam was late...
By hermanzegerman 2026-03-0511:01 My refund from my cross-border journey this Sunday was issued yesterday.
But that was from Germany to Austria, so that might make a difference
By wigster 2026-03-0414:21 Gold victim status - made me laugh
By TazeTSchnitzel 2026-03-0417:46 Someone wrote a satirical article in 2017 around the same concept: https://www.der-postillon.com/2017/12/bgh-bahn-gluecksspiel....
By weedhopper 2026-03-0417:06 Reads like Onion news (Zwiebel News?)
By croisillon 2026-03-0412:027 reply for the people who wouldn't have inadvertently clicked on the website: it's not real money, it's a campaign to nudge the German provider to care about their infamous delays
By fnordian_slip 2026-03-0412:269 reply It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.
In defense of Deutsche Bahn, countries with comparable infrastructure but more reliable transport have put in about twice as much money per capita for the last 30 years at least.
Also, it went through a pseudo-privatisation back then, which hasn't helped (just private enough to focus on quarterly profits by letting bridges decay so that they have to be rebuilt or repaired in a few years, just public enough that they have to serve a lot of non-lucrative areas by law).
I have to admit I'm rather biased as I work there, but I would say most employees do the best they can with the hand they're dealt. It's just that politicians dealt them a really bad hand. And if Germany were to properly invest in infrastructure from now on, there's so much stuff that has to be repaired that reliability would go down even more in the next decade or so (seriously, this is not something you could fix in a year or two, even with hundreds of billions).
By CaptainZapp 2026-03-0412:414 reply > In defense of Deutsche Bahn, countries with comparable infrastructure but more reliable transport have put in about twice as much money per capita for the last 30 years at least.
Why is that "in defense?"
When you let your infrastructure rot away since the 90s of the last century for something as complex as a train network by brutally underinvesting.
Then you seriously fucked up. There's nothing to defend here.
I think the defense is that it's the fault of the politicians (CDU/CSU, actually), as they are the ones allocating funds towards train infrastructure. The Deutsche Bahn is state-owned in all but name (which was one of the major fuckups of the last red-green government).
Well people keep electing CxU. The current structure of DB is formed by Helmut Kohl cabinet which is CxU.
By meetpaleltech 2026-03-0413:201 reply [flagged]
By okanat 2026-03-0413:42 "We elected right-wing parties who are against sane wages and unions and often use/exploit immigrants to depress wages while funneling billions into companies and away from infrastructure projects. So we decided to elect an even more right-wing party to blame immigrants while doing even more funneling away. It will definitely solve all the infrastructure problems that those penniless brown people and weird speaking ones caused."
By moresty 2026-03-0417:11 > Why is that "in defense?"
Because DB does not decide its own budget. And we're literally living in times where their employees are getting attacked and verbally abused by the passengers for the state of the train system
By hermanzegerman 2026-03-0417:54 Because stupid people that vote blame the company and not the politicians that underinvest for years
By rsynnott 2026-03-0417:36 Investment isn't really down to DB, though; it's down to the government.
By yawniek 2026-03-0412:52 Yes everyone does their best but in typical german fashion nobody does the right thing because it would mean to break some rules or habit. Its a general problem but it shows hard at DB.
By throw0101a 2026-03-0414:25 > It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.
Are you new to the Internet? This has been a thing since (at least) Slashdot. :)
By Liquid_Fire 2026-03-0420:21 > It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.
In defence of the 80%, there is no indication in any section other than the About page that it is not real money (with the possible exception of the suspiciously high sums of money), and most commercial services have fairly useless About pages. The HN headline presents it as if it's real.
A far cry from GP's implication that "inadvertently click[ing] on the website" is sufficient to see this.
By trueismywork 2026-03-0412:43 As someone who is in a group who regularly trashes DB at will, no one blames the line employees, but definitely blame people in upper levels of management
By zelphirkalt 2026-03-0413:471 reply > I have to admit I'm rather biased as I work there, but I would say most employees do the best they can with the hand they're dealt.
I think most people don't blame the normal employees. The blame is on the management layers, the "Wasserkopf", that gives themselves boni, even if things are done poorly and are going badly. A disconnect from the reality on the tracks.
I don't see improvements. I rather see worse and worse reliability, even though Deutsche Bahn asks for more and more money from the government. That money is disappearing somewhere, at least partially, instead of arriving in projects for improving the situation. In many places, if not most, there isn't even a single turnout track, so that any construction work halts the whole line. Disastrous. You cannot ask people to buy train tickets for 100 to 200 EUR, and then be hours late. I mean, you can, but then you are delusional. They are not surviving because of their great product or service, they are only surviving, because people don't have good alternatives. Basically, it is extortion. In other countries I pay 1/10 of the ticket price and I arrive on friggin' time, on a much longer ride.
By hermanzegerman 2026-03-0418:012 reply [flagged]
By zelphirkalt 2026-03-0418:471 reply I find your comment disrespectful and bordering breaking HN rules.
Please stop taking parts of sentences out of context when quoting, and please refrain from trying to dismiss other people's personal experiences as less valid than your subjective experience.
> What other countries are these supposed to be? I've travelled extensively around Europe, and there is hardly a country where you get the same level of comfort for the price.
Well, there you have it. You only consider European countries. That is quite a limited perspective. In China I can pay around 12 EUR and take a reliable high speed train, that takes me further than Germany is in size. The interior of those trains looks a bit older than ICEs in Germany, but actually offer more space for each individual passenger and allow for a more comfortable ride. The trains actually go fast (200-300km/h), not like in Germany, where it can happen, that you take an ICE train and for part of the way crawl at 30km/h. I am aware, that the comparison is not a 1 to 1 comparison, but ultimately the high speed train system there just works. Whether that is due to massive government investment or cheaper workforce, I don't debate. The result is good, reliable and cheap train service, that pays off in being way more climate-friendly, than the bad train service in Germany, that pushes people to take the car instead.
But another example of how prices in Germany are insane is actually another city in Europe: Madrid. The metro system there even rivals or surpasses modern Chinese cities, because it is even simpler to use. You pay for "1 ride", only a little more than 1 EUR (I paid 11.60EUR for 10 rides), and that ride lasts until you exit the station somewhere. You can change as many times as you want, stay in the metro for hours riding back and forth, if you so desire. The moment you leave a station, you will need to scan your card and only then 1 ride is deducted from your card. It is so simple, it is a dream. Meanwhile in Germany, you pay 3-4x the price for a 1h ticket or so-and-so many stops ticket. Ridiculous.
Germany did a good thing: The Germany ticket. But slowly the cost for that is creeping up. From originally 49 EUR, it is now at over 60 EUR. If this goes on, it will soon no longer be a viable choice for people, who don't take the train every day, but maybe 2-3 times a week.
By hermanzegerman 2026-03-0419:181 reply You've made some unfounded rumors and claims, calling it your "personal" experience whilst calling the fact that there was more investment and maintenance of infrastructure done "subjective".
Was your claim that the better funding doesn't get invested but is disappearing "somewhere" also a "personal experience" ?
Your comment now is way more balanced and objective than the stuff you wrote previously, and I would probably agree with you
By zelphirkalt 2026-03-052:031 reply Can you at least try to interpret in good faith? You seem to intentionally misunderstand everything I write...
By _9za9 2026-03-056:15 He does that to everyone. Hacker News sucks these days.
By tomalbrc 2026-03-0412:32 > It's incredible that about 80% of people in this thread seem to be commenting without having looked at the website.
It’s almost as if people are tired of having betting shoved down their throats.
By Schlagbohrer 2026-03-0413:081 reply Privitisation is a huge curse, and a tremendous scam perpetuated by capitalist financiers. Where has it ever produced better results? No private entity can provide a service at cost like the government can.
By lava_pidgeon 2026-03-0413:293 reply SpaceX or rockets Generally, Telecom in Germany, flights in Europe, train transport in Japan and Italy.
> Telecom in Germany
Telekom is a profitable enterprise. Yet, telecom infrastructure in Germany is on a remarkably bad level and relatively expensive. Cell coverage is also still bad, especially when travelling via rail or car.
With the exception if the Japanese Rail, all the other examples are different in one crucial detail: they are not natural monopolies.
By flrlfmkhmem 2026-03-0414:212 reply I don’t think you’re aware of how bad the national railway has been managed in japan, they even went broke in the 80s with trillions in debt and had to split up sell off all their infrastructure and vehicles. That’s the reason why there’s often many non-interconnected competing stations at the same site today.
By lava_pidgeon 2026-03-0419:33 Compared to the state owned Deutsch bahn or pre competition trenitalia Japanese railways are quiet good.
(There is plenty of examples for good or bad private or state owned railways. It's just not black and white)
By moooo99 2026-03-058:09 Yeah, I have absolutely no clue about japanese rail whatsoever, so I chose to not comment about it.
For Germany though, the rail „privatization“ has been an absolute failure no matter how you try to spin it, unfortunately. But hey, at least we have nice rolling stock!
By zelphirkalt 2026-03-0413:501 reply Yep, compared to other countries, Germany is almost third-world country, when it comes to reliable Internet service, and prices.
By moooo99 2026-03-058:07 Yeah, after all, we need to protect the financial interests of a formerly state-owned monopoly :)
I would not call telecommunications privatization in Germany a success story.
Yes, we can use more devices now. Prices have stayed more or less the same (or have risen, corrected by inflation. Service quality has collapsed, though.
By lava_pidgeon 2026-03-0419:34 Prices collapsed, too. Sorry, this is just bad nostalgia. It was really bad if you reqd the details.
Allowing private competition is generally good, but converting an existing state monopoly to a private corporation is generally bad.
By hulitu 2026-03-0415:03 > Allowing private competition is generally good,
Except when they quickly build cartels. See internet in Germany.
By meetpaleltech 2026-03-0413:23 > I work there
OMG. Employers to never work for:
- the Bund - the Oeffentlichen - Deutsche Bahn - Unions, especially ver.di - established / legacy parties
By pantalaimon 2026-03-0412:561 reply The problem is the infrastructure. There is already the Generalsanierung under way, it will take a decade and secure the status quo.
A lot of delays are due to rail corridors being at capacity, but overboarding bureaucracy makes any improvement there a generational project.
Hamburg - Hanover has been discussed for decades with strong opposition from NIMBY groups with no solution in sight.
But even if there is no opposition things take ages. E.g. for restoring the 2nd track and electrification between Cottbus and Görlitz the plan is now to finish the project by 2041.
This is absolutely insane for 100km of track that were removed as WW2 reparations.
And looking at previous projects it's unlikely to finish in time.
The new S-Bahn track in Berlin between the main station and Gesundbrunnen was supposed to open in 2017. It got delayed over and over and is now finally scheduled to open by the end of this month - just a delay of 9 years.
And that's with an interim station because the real station at Hauptbahnhof wasn't finished in time - and no intermediate stop, that's now also in the planning phase and will mean the line will have to be interrupted again in the near future
By zelphirkalt 2026-03-0413:54 When Generalsanierung is over, they can start again right away. That's just the maintenance/running cost. What is needed is building turnout tracks and other stuff to avoid delays. The delays turn people away from riding trains, or buying tickets. We want to combat climate change, but our train service is so bad, that people prefer to drive 4-person cars, alone, for hours, during which they need to be paying attention to the road at all times, instead of sitting in a train and relaxing, or getting stuff done, that they can do during the ride. There is something fundamentally wrong.
I am pretty sure that they know about the delays. A nice thing about the Deutsche Bahn is that they exist. It's not the case in every country in the world.
Sure, they can improve, but it seems possible. The French SNCF has improved a lot in the last decade, for instance.
This is true. DB trains get me from one point to another point, and in my experience, are usually not more than a few hours delayed end-to-end.
Remember that if your train is delayed more than a certain amount (30 minutes?) you have the legal right to ignore the routing on your ticket and take any train you want, that leads towards the destination on your ticket. Consider it an adventure. The app can suggest alternative routes in real-time, and you can also ask at the info desk at any station that has one.
By trueismywork 2026-03-0412:441 reply Huge number of people use DB for regional transport for commute. They get affected by 10 mins delay since connections are missed
By mafuy 2026-03-0417:10 The free choice of train does take this into account. You just need a (single!) ticket that, overall, will expectedly suffer from a delay long enough.
By rsynnott 2026-03-0417:39 > Remember that if your train is delayed more than a certain amount (30 minutes?) you have the legal right to ignore the routing on your ticket and take any train you want, that leads towards the destination on your ticket
There's definitely a comedy docudrama in there somewhere.
By mafuy 2026-03-0417:09 Nitpick: Unless it changed, you cannot upgrade from regional to interregional vehicles. You can upgrade from IC to ICE, though, and in general, the free choice of vehicle on your route is very useful.
You're actually not necessarily right.
At this point here in the south of Germany not having DB would be an improvement.
Now it exists and you might even try to take it just to be delayed and disappointed. You'll lose your money and they behave in their arrogant manner with impunity.
Their customer "service" will definitely tell you how it's your own fault for having had the nerve to actually try to take their train. You might have even carried some dirt to the train for Christs sake!
So yeah. Not having it would already be an improvement. You'd just shrug and move on and take an alternative transport. Even horse and carriage would be better.
By palata 2026-03-0414:02 I understand your frustration, and as I said they should improve (though that probably requires time and money). The SNCF shows that it is possible.
> Even horse and carriage would be better.
How does the existence of the DB prevent you from travelling with your horse and carriage? Your attitude doesn't seem very constructive, to be honest.
By throw899832 2026-03-0414:572 reply > A nice thing about the Deutsche Bahn is that they exist. It's not the case in every country in the world.
EU does not have a train monopoly. There are other train companies in Germany (FlixTrain, OBB, BRB...). And operators from other countries can also operate there, even French SNCF!
DB is blocking slots on rail, that could be used by other operators. And they are not going to change because it is Germany.
By pantalaimon 2026-03-0415:061 reply All operators run on DB infrastructure.
I recently experienced this with CD from Karlovy Vary to Berlin. It was snowing that day and inside of the Czech Republic I was enjoying the scenic view of the Egerland without any delays.
But as soon as we pulled into Germany, the train came to a stop - problems with the rail security infrastructure, nothing the train operator has any influence on.
We eventually arrived in Berlin with +1h delay.
By throw899832 2026-03-0415:14 > All operators run on DB infrastructure.
Rails, buildings and train stations are in separate company (DB InfraGO), owned by DB.
But DB has no monopoly on trains in Germany, any company can run trains there.
My opinion is that trains are a natural monopoly, they should belong to the government.
Fine if some trains go through it (e.g. a TGV between Paris and Berlin).
By khafra 2026-03-0413:28 I wonder how hard it would be to get a court ruling or new law that DB is required to bet on every arrival, and make their bets public in easily-digestible formats like .csv
I'd really like to see that happen for the S-trains, as well--DB loves nothing more than continuing to project an on-time arrival on the station board, as the time of departure comes and goes and other trains arrive and depart.
By Aissen 2026-03-0413:58 Thanks for the context. Since I'm not interested in betting, I had not clicked on the grey on white About link at the bottom, which says:
> All the trains, delays, and data on this app are real.But the money isn't – because for that I'd need to move to Malta. Or Cyprus. Or Schleswig-Holstein.
By hardlianotion 2026-03-0615:55 That is the only disappointing aspect of the site. It's genius.
By tw-20260303-001 2026-03-0412:132 reply DB is a job program. Nobody at DB cares.
Surprising but train drivers and operators also like to go home on time.
By philipallstar 2026-03-0412:32 The problem people have is the trains don't get them home on time.
By littlecranky67 2026-03-0412:571 reply For Deutsche Bahn, freelance contracting jobs in their IT famously always require 2+ years experience in train infrastructure companies as a hard requirement. Not joking, this is a common pattern in their job ads. Look at this ad, where they are looking for a Go/React/RabbitMQ expert: https://www.freelancermap.de/projekt/senior-fullstack-entwic...
Why is that an issue? It's a freelance gig, so you are free to ask for whatever requirements you want.
But I remember being interviewed for a cybersecurity job at Siemens's Trains division and the german guys there started grilling me on some obscure cybersecurity standards used by the rail industry, even though that was never in my pentest resume and it's something that can be learned on the job.
Germans really hate hiring people who don't 100% fit a job description no matter how impossible it is. No wonder their economy is stagnant, when it's based on HR box ticking instead of aptitudes.
It's a problem because they don't get good employees and then they don't work well as a company.
Maybe they don't want good employees, they want yes-men instead that don't rock the boat and keep the politics gravy train going for the C-suites.
Good employees are required for the private sector that has competition, not for pseudo-state controlled pseudo-monopolies.
By gzread 2026-03-0612:55 And that's a problem. Maybe the shareholders don't find it to be a problem, but it's a problem for everyone regardless.
By littlecranky67 2026-03-0414:041 reply Because there is no other railway infrastructure company. They are looking for people they already employ.
What do you mean? How can they look hire people if they already employ them?
By littlecranky67 2026-03-0415:04 Exactly my point.
