4 ms·

It's amazing how naked it is that laws just don't apply to certain people. Kalshi et al are obviously gambling, and yet somehow all the laws about gambling hav

by Pxtl 3mo ago

It's amazing how naked it is that laws just don't apply to certain people. Kalshi et al are obviously gambling, and yet somehow all the laws about gambling have been politely forgotten by law enforcement.

boredatoms 3mo ago
Same thing happened in the early days of Uber, with taxi licenses
- hvs 3mo ago
  And DraftKings/FanDuel
- lr4444lr 3mo ago
  While your analogy is valid, I find it hard to get upset at people who flout an artificially imposed limit to a license to engage in employment. I'm aware the vehicles and drivers were at first highly unvetted, but the moral impulse that's got everyone so up in arms about prediction markets isn't remotely the same as Uber smashing through antiquated monopolies that existed more by historical accident than any unavoidable public safety need.
  - Pxtl 3mo ago
    Exactly. While there isn't much of a legal distinction between regulatory capture and consumer protection, there's obviously an ethical one. Uber was ignoring rules that apparently mostly protected established investors rather than end-users of car-hiring services.
miltonlost 3mo ago
Some states are trying to fight against Kalshi. One of the problems is the President's family has a financial interest in these markets and so the Republican party does their best to say "hey, these are clearly "swaps" and not bets!!!1!" https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2026/06/29/125136-kalshi-sues-illinois-over-prediction-market-regulations-ahead-of-july-1-deadline https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2026/06/29/125136...
- saalweachter 3mo ago
  I would also like to take a moment to evangelize against the notion that all politicians are crooks. Some politicians are crooks. They should be voted out, investigated, prosecuted and publicly scorned. "Everyone cheats" is something cheaters say to (a) feel better about themselves and (b) try to get other people to ignore their cheating when they get caught. Don't believe their lies. Most people don't cheat. In studies of cooperative behavior, most people choose to cooperate, and the key predictor of whether someone will cooperate is whether they believe other people will choose to cooperate. Cynicism is permission to defect. Defectors must be punished.
- datakan 3mo ago
  Sure lets act like Democrats are innocent little victims in all of this
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Pxtl 3mo ago
    Yeah, I think we all remember how Hunter Biden tried to get tips from white-house associated UFC organizers about whether the fight was rigged or if there were any injuries that would help him know how to bet on the fight. Oh wait, I'm sorry, my mistake, that was Eric Trump. https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/pic-eric-trump-requests-insider-235229462.html https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/pic-eric-trump-requests-in...
    - datakan 3mo ago
      I'm not going tit for tat on corruption. If you treat this like team sports and fail to hold "your side" accountable then you deserve all the misery you'll inevitably receive. God help you
  - miltonlost 3mo ago
    Sure lets act like Republicans aren't overwhelmingly corrupt at the head
rustystump 3mo ago
Not defending Kalshi but stock market has been gambling lite for a while now. It is pretty wild how blatant it is now though.
- Pxtl 3mo ago
  I think it was kind of a chain reaction... gambling liberalization and bitcoin happened around the same time, and then people figured out "Oh this thing we do with buying bitcoin and then talking everybody else into buying bitcoin... we can just do that with regular securities can't we" and then the hyper-valuation of Tesla and Gamestop happened. Now everything is either gambling or a scam or both.
chucksmash 3mo ago
Here at least I believe the gambling laws have changed. Most gas stations I go into now have "gaming" machines and there's always some soul sitting at them at any time of day. I'm mostly on team let-people-do-what-they-want-even-if-it's-bad-for-them but it's disheartening to watch a dad sitting there totally sucked into it and just ignoring their kid in a stroller behind them.
- frollogaston 3mo ago
  If I ever see that, I'll tell the dad something
- Pxtl 3mo ago
  Right, but as exploitive as those things are, they're still regulated and taxed as gambling. The regs may be a joke, but they exist. Like in some places they're required to remind the player about addiction concerns and direct them to help for it, and to fund those programs. And part of the reason that states (and provinces here in Canada) were so gung-ho on the liberalization of gambling is that they take a fat cut. aside: recreational gambling should require a federal ID with losses tracked online, and if you're down more than 10% of last year's after-tax income you're cut off for the rest of the year, but I assume the Canadian and especially US constitutions rules against doing good things federally make that impossible.
- jtr1 3mo ago
  I think the limitation to team "let-people-do-what-they-want-even-if-it's-bad-for-them" is that it's rooted in outdated assumptions about what free will and coercion look like. Broadly speaking, libertarian notions of negative freedom assume a model of coercion with a very small footprint, primarily the threat of immanent physical violence. Similarly, it sees the exercise of free will as a binary action, rather than a spectrum of ability. We entered this era a long time ago, where psychological insight and computational or chemical power can combine to override people's ability to make free choices. But I'm still not sure there is a widely shared philosophical or ideological framework that has fully digested and responded to these new realities yet.
  - 3mo ago
gwerbin 3mo ago
Is it obviously gambling? Would it be any different if a large financial institution sold prediction market securities?
- Legend2440 3mo ago
  Somewhere between 70 and 90% of Kalshi event contracts are sports betting. This is obviously gambling. Much of the remainder is silly stuff like 'how many times will Elon Musk tweet this week' with no predictive value. Again, gambling. Ironically they've banned a bunch of the genuinely predictive stuff like 'will this town in Ukraine be attacked this week' on public policy grounds.

by Pxtl 3mo ago

boredatoms 3mo ago

Same thing happened in the early days of Uber, with taxi licenses

hvs 3mo ago
And DraftKings/FanDuel
lr4444lr 3mo ago
While your analogy is valid, I find it hard to get upset at people who flout an artificially imposed limit to a license to engage in employment. I'm aware the vehicles and drivers were at first highly unvetted, but the moral impulse that's got everyone so up in arms about prediction markets isn't remotely the same as Uber smashing through antiquated monopolies that existed more by historical accident than any unavoidable public safety need.
- Pxtl 3mo ago
  Exactly. While there isn't much of a legal distinction between regulatory capture and consumer protection, there's obviously an ethical one. Uber was ignoring rules that apparently mostly protected established investors rather than end-users of car-hiring services.

miltonlost 3mo ago

Some states are trying to fight against Kalshi. One of the problems is the President's family has a financial interest in these markets and so the Republican party does their best to say "hey, these are clearly "swaps" and not bets!!!1!" https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2026/06/29/125136-kalshi-sues-illinois-over-prediction-market-regulations-ahead-of-july-1-deadline https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2026/06/29/125136...

saalweachter 3mo ago
I would also like to take a moment to evangelize against the notion that all politicians are crooks. Some politicians are crooks. They should be voted out, investigated, prosecuted and publicly scorned. "Everyone cheats" is something cheaters say to (a) feel better about themselves and (b) try to get other people to ignore their cheating when they get caught. Don't believe their lies. Most people don't cheat. In studies of cooperative behavior, most people choose to cooperate, and the key predictor of whether someone will cooperate is whether they believe other people will choose to cooperate. Cynicism is permission to defect. Defectors must be punished.
datakan 3mo ago
Sure lets act like Democrats are innocent little victims in all of this
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- Pxtl 3mo ago
  Yeah, I think we all remember how Hunter Biden tried to get tips from white-house associated UFC organizers about whether the fight was rigged or if there were any injuries that would help him know how to bet on the fight. Oh wait, I'm sorry, my mistake, that was Eric Trump. https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/pic-eric-trump-requests-insider-235229462.html https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/pic-eric-trump-requests-in...
  - datakan 3mo ago
    I'm not going tit for tat on corruption. If you treat this like team sports and fail to hold "your side" accountable then you deserve all the misery you'll inevitably receive. God help you
- miltonlost 3mo ago
  Sure lets act like Republicans aren't overwhelmingly corrupt at the head

rustystump 3mo ago

Not defending Kalshi but stock market has been gambling lite for a while now. It is pretty wild how blatant it is now though.

Pxtl 3mo ago
I think it was kind of a chain reaction... gambling liberalization and bitcoin happened around the same time, and then people figured out "Oh this thing we do with buying bitcoin and then talking everybody else into buying bitcoin... we can just do that with regular securities can't we" and then the hyper-valuation of Tesla and Gamestop happened. Now everything is either gambling or a scam or both.

chucksmash 3mo ago

Here at least I believe the gambling laws have changed. Most gas stations I go into now have "gaming" machines and there's always some soul sitting at them at any time of day. I'm mostly on team let-people-do-what-they-want-even-if-it's-bad-for-them but it's disheartening to watch a dad sitting there totally sucked into it and just ignoring their kid in a stroller behind them.

frollogaston 3mo ago
If I ever see that, I'll tell the dad something
Pxtl 3mo ago
Right, but as exploitive as those things are, they're still regulated and taxed as gambling. The regs may be a joke, but they exist. Like in some places they're required to remind the player about addiction concerns and direct them to help for it, and to fund those programs. And part of the reason that states (and provinces here in Canada) were so gung-ho on the liberalization of gambling is that they take a fat cut. aside: recreational gambling should require a federal ID with losses tracked online, and if you're down more than 10% of last year's after-tax income you're cut off for the rest of the year, but I assume the Canadian and especially US constitutions rules against doing good things federally make that impossible.
jtr1 3mo ago
I think the limitation to team "let-people-do-what-they-want-even-if-it's-bad-for-them" is that it's rooted in outdated assumptions about what free will and coercion look like. Broadly speaking, libertarian notions of negative freedom assume a model of coercion with a very small footprint, primarily the threat of immanent physical violence. Similarly, it sees the exercise of free will as a binary action, rather than a spectrum of ability. We entered this era a long time ago, where psychological insight and computational or chemical power can combine to override people's ability to make free choices. But I'm still not sure there is a widely shared philosophical or ideological framework that has fully digested and responded to these new realities yet.
- 3mo ago

gwerbin 3mo ago

Is it obviously gambling? Would it be any different if a large financial institution sold prediction market securities?

Legend2440 3mo ago
Somewhere between 70 and 90% of Kalshi event contracts are sports betting. This is obviously gambling. Much of the remainder is silly stuff like 'how many times will Elon Musk tweet this week' with no predictive value. Again, gambling. Ironically they've banned a bunch of the genuinely predictive stuff like 'will this town in Ukraine be attacked this week' on public policy grounds.