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Posted by ortusdux 9 hours ago

Minnesota becomes first state to ban prediction markets(www.npr.org)
546 points | 165 commentspage 2
rebekkamikkoa 7 hours ago|
It’s hard to pretend this isn’t at least gambling-adjacent when most people are simply betting on outcomes.
jeltz 5 hours ago||
Given that exactly the same thing has been regulated as gambling in Europe under the name "betting exchange" for 25 years the case for it being gambling is quite strong.
anon291 44 minutes ago|||
It's gambling sure and gambling should generally be legal. People are bizarrely puritanical about this.
elictronic 7 hours ago||
It’s easy to pretend, just really hard to convince anyone without a direct financial interest.
jimmygrapes 1 hour ago||
They're only doing this because they know Brock "Legnar" is gonna win at Summerslam

/s but not /s iykyk

kklisura 6 hours ago||
Cue in the talking heads to tell us how devastating this ban is.
Robotbeat 7 hours ago||
Does this ban the prediction markets that don’t use real money but instead tokens that are worthless?
antiframe 5 hours ago|
If the tokens are worthless, where's the thrill in the gambling?
kyledrake 6 hours ago||
They're not going to get rid of them, they're just going to drive them underground, which will make them impossible to regulate, which will make using them less safe. I don't participate in prediction markets, but I would bet everything I own on this outcome.
kube-system 5 hours ago||
That's already what it is. They are an underground gambling site pretending that they're not doing things that they literally do by calling it something else. They're like a drug dealer who thinks they're slick by calling their drugs "research chemicals".
wizzwizz4 6 hours ago|||
Making using them less safe means that certain kinds of better are less likely to use them, which may be a purpose of this legislation.
tyg13 5 hours ago|||
Exactly. I see this common idea trotted out that "where there's a will, there's a way" -- if the government bans something, the ban will never be effective, because people still want that thing, and so a ban will just encourage violating the law.

But that's highly contingent on that thing being something people are willing to violate the law over, and on the convenience of that thing not being significantly impacted by prohibition. Neither of which are true for prediction betting (it's almost identical to sports betting in that regard, imo.) The only reason these markets proliferate is precisely because they are legal.

peferron 3 hours ago|||
Especially if there's also a ban on related advertising. Polymarket and others are absolutely flooding the world with ads at the moment.
tempaccountabcd 6 hours ago||
[dead]
steve1977 8 hours ago||
Isn't the stock market a prediction market as well?
kube-system 7 hours ago||
No, a stock is a share of ownership in a company.

Now yes, people bet on the derivative value of those ownership shares... but that also happens to basically every asset. If a stock is a prediction market, then so is corn, and gold, and your home.

michaelscott 6 hours ago||
Yes, they are. Accurate prediction is rewarded in every market, for every asset or asset class. There are adjacent order benefits (I live in my home, I eat corn, I have a say in how a company is run) but these are never divorced from the impact of prediction and prediction in aggregate is just a crowdsourced leading indicator of value; oil spikes the moment a missile hits Iran not because the 2 are explicitly linked, but because the market has predicted the effect on the flow of that oil over some subsequent timeframe and priced itself accordingly
kube-system 6 hours ago||
Yes, but all of these things have underlying assets that are not themselves predictions. You can buy and sell corn commodities, but at the end of the contract, actual corn is delivered. Predictions markets are different in that they betting on the prediction itself and have no associated asset.
foobarchu 8 hours ago|||
The difference in my mind is that prediction markets and gambling are betting on outcomes, not long term behaviors. You could make the argument that they are the same, in the sense that buying a stock is "betting" on a company to do well, but I think you'd be making a silly argument. Stocks are intangible these days, but they were traditionally a physical thing that one would trade. If you're betting on prediction markets, there's nothing to trade after the event happens, just payouts.
SoftTalker 7 hours ago|||
Stocks are shares of ownership. Now, in practice many people buy them as bets, but even those aren't really predictions. Prediction markets are time-boxed all-or-nothing plays. You are either correct, or you lose your entire stake.
nojito 8 hours ago|||
Not exactly. Kalshi is binary options. Not stocks.
natas 5 hours ago|||
Stocks aren't prediction markets, but options and futures are.
wnc3141 8 hours ago|||
I think the stocks don't have a arbiter managing a discrete outcome between parties that don't have any KYC compliance.
ahepp 7 hours ago|||
Couldn’t we say that any market rewards prediction? And that this is generally seen as a beneficial quality that results in more accurate valuations with better liquidity?
rizzom5000 7 hours ago|||
Stock prices are a prediction built on crowdsourced information.
unethical_ban 6 hours ago||
A commenter noted that MN already bans sports-betting, which is far closer to what prediction markets are than asset trading.

A closer stock analogy would be options.

yamillove 7 hours ago||
It would be good if they banned Learing Centers.
behringer 5 hours ago|
They do ban fraudulant learning centers...
OsrsNeedsf2P 7 hours ago||
> The prohibition extends to services supporting prediction markets, like virtual private networks, that could allow consumers to disguise their location and get around the ban.

I'm sorry, what the fuck?

kube-system 7 hours ago|
That's a creative interpretation by NPR. The law doesn't mention VPNs. The law bans:

> provid[ing] supportive services to a prediction market or consumer knowing that the services will be used to identify a consumer’s location, transfer money, or make or process payments for the purpose of allowing consumers to make wagers or to settle wagers made by consumers in violation of this section.

"knowing" is key here.

Zopieux 3 hours ago||
Congrats Minnesota and good luck with enforcement.
CPLX 7 hours ago|
They've been banned for generations. It's called gambling.

Of course, we all have to sit through another round of Silicon Valley pretending they've discovered some new exciting business model that's just vice.

Unlicensed gypsy cabs, SROs, shift work, patent medicines, narcotics dealing, customs fraud, and smuggling already had established market entrants I guess.

anon291 42 minutes ago||
Gambling works and is normal in most of the world. No idea why the USA is puritanical about this. It's like the oldest business on the planet.
chairmansteve 3 hours ago||
You left out ponzi schemes, aka crypto.
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