3 ms·

This chance/skill argument could be made for the financial markets.

• wpietri 11y ago
  The distinction with financial markets is that they are enablers of useful economic activity. Years ago I worked for financial traders in Chicago, home to a lot of commodities markets. Thousands of people traded futures and options on those markets. But every winter, there was also the Chicago snow markets, where those same traders would illegally trade futures and options on how much snow would fall each month at O'Hare airport. It was illegal because it was not a CFTC-regulated market; it was just a gambling operation that happened to use financial lingo to make the best more interesting. Interestingly, I see that decades later a legal snow market was actually launched: http://openmarkets.cmegroup.com/4967/a-market-for-snow-how-some-businesses-use-futures-to-prepare-for-winter http://openmarkets.cmegroup.com/4967/a-market-for-snow-how-s... Here, though they had found a legitimate purpose: it let people with snow-related expenses insure themselves against excessive snow-related expenses.