You don’t even have to read the article, the headline says it all…

I would amend your “breaking the law” comment to “willfully ignoring all regulation, taxes, and labor provisions” perhaps but, same sentiment.

The problem lies in the legal gray area of what constitutes gambling, and therefore "illegal" gambling. That's what the courts have to decide.

I think most people would say this is gambling. But our legal system has to rule on that before we can start putting people in jail for it.

A pyramid scheme uses new investor money to pay fake returns to those who have already invested.

A casino provides games to bet on where expected value for the player is negative. A sportsbook balances their book by modifying the odds to remain as neutral as possible and capture the spread (see ‘vig’).

There’s not a whole lot of similarity there.

To me it's absolutely crazy that the "gamble on anything" apps are being advertised as some kind of polling software. I've already seen at least one race called into question because the gamblers bet on the wrong pony.

They're pure corruption engines designed for insider betting. The top brass of these companies need to be made example of.

Now, Robinhood is a brokerage, regulated by FINRA, and has been fined for misbehavior in the past. So I am more than willing to believe that there is daylight here that I’m not seeing. But anything that lets you speculate attracts a certain clientele, and I think the most important distinction is whether or not the platform itself is an interested party.

Here is their official stance on gambling: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topi...

I am not sure how much, if any, impact or influence this has had on Utah law.

Most uncertain things that people need to hedge (currency, commodity prices) already had a hedge.

In practical terms can someone really give me an example of how they benefited from knowing the future (materially, not emotionally) from a prediction they got from Kalshi? I am honestly curious.

Unfortunately they also place a larger financial inventive on influencing the outcome of future events. Or incentivizing corruption within the inner circles of these events. Because the larger financial upside in these transactions is to bet against what the market thinks, and influence the outcome.

It would be interesting to see how frequently Polymarket predictions bet against the most common prediction and by what margins.

I'd be in favor of a prediction market for which which asteroids are likely to collide with something, and when. Though we'll have to shut it down once it becomes feasible that somebody might go up and nudge one.

There is plenty of data that shows they actually don't work very well outside of surfacing insider knowledge (which the commercial prediction markets superficially pretend to be against).

For events where you can't have full picture insider knowledge like elections, prediction markets are pretty awful at accurate predictions.

I mean look at all the oil market manipulation in the Iran war. The pattern was repeated so many times: short oil, announce a ceasefire deal with imminent on Sunday before the markets open, cash out on Monday, rinse and repeat.

The argument is that we get transparency on what's likely to happen. I don't think there's any evidence of this. I've seen any number of very poor predictions coming from Kalshi and Polymarket. I have also seen some clear manipulation.

We should call this what this is: gambling.

This is so fallacious. Putting money behind something doesn't make a prediction of a non-knowable more accurate.

Tarot card readings by a psychic must be more accurate predictor than a tarot card reading by an amateur because professional tarot card readers have a financial incentive to be right, so people continue coming back to them for advice. Getting a tarot card reading therefore makes this basically most accurate predictor!!

Here, let me predict a future where someone will die. On the other side, let me pay for a hit on the same person. /s

^It's a bit extreme and exaggerated, but it's like that on purpose to make a point.