Minnesota Becomes First State To Ban Prediction Markets (npr.org) 132
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation's first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state, and in response, the Trump administration has sued, teeing up a legal battle over the most far-reaching crackdown on popular services like Kalshi and Polymarket. It comes as states confront a growing standoff with the Trump administration over how to regulate the industry, which allows people to bet on virtually anything.
The new state law makes it a crime to host or advertise a prediction market, which it defines as a system that lets consumers place a wager on a future outcome, like sports, elections, live entertainment, someone's word choice and world affairs. 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. It would force prediction market sites like Kalshi and Polymarket to leave the state, or face possible felony charges. The law takes effect in August.
The law has a carve-out for event contracts that serve as an insurance policy in the event of "harm, or loss sustained" and for the purchase of securities and other commodities. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's lawsuit seeks to block the law before it starts, arguing the prediction market industry should be exclusively regulated by federal officials. "This Minnesota law turns lawful operators and participants in prediction markets into felons overnight," said CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.
"Minnesota farmers have relied on critical hedging products on weather and crop-related events for decades to mitigate their risks. Governor Walz chose to put special interests first and American farmers and innovators last." An updated version of the prediction market bill allows trading on weather, an exception that followed pushback from the agricultural industry, which has historically used futures trading on weather as a hedge against storms and other inclement weather that can affect a harvest. Walz is expected to sign it soon. "We as a state should decide how best and what regulations we think should attach to gambling, to protect public safety, to protect our kids," said Minnesota Rep. Emma Greenman, the Democrat who introduced the measure.
Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana called the ban a "blatant violation" of the law. "Minnesota banning prediction markets is like trying to ban the New York Stock Exchange," said Diana, adding that "this actively harms users because it reduces competition and drives activity offshore."
The new state law makes it a crime to host or advertise a prediction market, which it defines as a system that lets consumers place a wager on a future outcome, like sports, elections, live entertainment, someone's word choice and world affairs. 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. It would force prediction market sites like Kalshi and Polymarket to leave the state, or face possible felony charges. The law takes effect in August.
The law has a carve-out for event contracts that serve as an insurance policy in the event of "harm, or loss sustained" and for the purchase of securities and other commodities. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's lawsuit seeks to block the law before it starts, arguing the prediction market industry should be exclusively regulated by federal officials. "This Minnesota law turns lawful operators and participants in prediction markets into felons overnight," said CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.
"Minnesota farmers have relied on critical hedging products on weather and crop-related events for decades to mitigate their risks. Governor Walz chose to put special interests first and American farmers and innovators last." An updated version of the prediction market bill allows trading on weather, an exception that followed pushback from the agricultural industry, which has historically used futures trading on weather as a hedge against storms and other inclement weather that can affect a harvest. Walz is expected to sign it soon. "We as a state should decide how best and what regulations we think should attach to gambling, to protect public safety, to protect our kids," said Minnesota Rep. Emma Greenman, the Democrat who introduced the measure.
Kalshi spokeswoman Elisabeth Diana called the ban a "blatant violation" of the law. "Minnesota banning prediction markets is like trying to ban the New York Stock Exchange," said Diana, adding that "this actively harms users because it reduces competition and drives activity offshore."
And suddenly (Score:5, Insightful)
Republicans shut up about states rights.
Re:And suddenly (Score:4, Interesting)
Republicans shut up about states rights.
Republicans have always been hypocritical about states' rights.
Abortion was a states' rights issue until RvW was overturned, and suddenly they wanted a national ban.
They want the Feds to overturn state-level pot legalization, ban sanctuary cities, etc.
Re: And suddenly (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes --> ban sanctuary cities, or let them continue to exist with the addition of Feds being able to walk in to nab criminals using sanctuary cities as hiding places.
Yes --> overturn state-level pot legalization (would you want a bunch of stoners to come into your little convenience store (where families shop with their kids) reeking of pot? What's to stop them from getting high and driving around? I know I sure love getting into an elevator that a pothead was in, and smelling like pot), and maybe no
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Living in a state that legalized pot, the legalization didn't really change the number of stoners. We still have laws against driving under the influence.
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If so, then why do you get a lungful of pot smoke when cars drive by?
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That's never happened to me. but maybe in your area people are sharing rides with someone smoking or they're illegally smoking while driving.
Not related to legalization of course
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Yes --> ban sanctuary cities, or let them continue to exist with the addition of Feds being able to walk in to nab criminals using sanctuary cities as hiding places.
Well as long as federal agents can't walk into the White House or Capitol building to nab criminals.
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Are they illegal immigrants?
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Hint: they don't legalize driving while stoned, but the driver is still hittin' that blunt while behind the wheel.
Re: And suddenly (Score:2)
Re: And suddenly (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And suddenly (Score:5, Informative)
They want the Feds to overturn state-level pot legalization, ban sanctuary cities, etc.
,,, ...
I'd love to know exactly who "they" is in your comment here given that move.
This is for medical use; not recreational. He's clawing back control, not giving more permission. Meanwhile, GOP in the house is blocking funding for that very same rescheduling (as of April 2026), and GOP leaders and legislatures in the states are working to repeal elements of the legalization laws and weakening reforms.
What progress have the GOP actually accomplished on the pot legalization front? Thoughts and prayers?
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They want the Feds to overturn state-level pot legalization, ban sanctuary cities, etc.
,,, I'd love to know exactly who "they" is in your comment here given that move. ...
This is for medical use; not recreational. He's clawing back control, not giving more permission. Meanwhile, GOP in the house is blocking funding for that very same rescheduling (as of April 2026), and GOP leaders and legislatures in the states are working to repeal elements of the legalization laws and weakening reforms.
What progress have the GOP actually accomplished on the pot legalization front? Thoughts and prayers?
If medical cannabis stays at Schedule III as it now should easily be able to even without funding from the “evil” Republican Party that paved that road, then you can watch Democrats fund the studies when they get in power.
Or you can watch those same Democrats who didn’t do shit regarding rescheduling and rather enjoyed busting pot shops with DEA raids, lie to voters and not fund the research either.
What you will NOT do, is deny the actual legal changes and progress made by President Trump
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The changes you outlined don't change one iota of the comment that you had replied to. Namely:
They want the Feds to overturn state-level pot legalization, ban sanctuary cities, etc.
I'd love to know exactly who "they" is in your comment here given that move.
"that move" referring to a rescheduling to allow medical research of cannabis on the federal level. And that move is being blocked in the house by the GOP, so zero progress has been made.
So I will say again, what progress have the GOP actually accomplished on the pot legalization front? Thoughts and prayers?
What you will NOT do, is deny the actual legal changes and progress made by President Trump on both the medicinal cannabis and psilocybin studies and support. ...
As already noted, and AFAICT, there have been no such actual legal changes. What, exactly, are you referring
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Cite one time he's mentioned marijuana is a positive light. This was a PR move cooked up by his handlers, and it's pretty inconsequential. It's not legalization, it's not decriminalization. It may open the door for some pharmaceutical company to develop a $1000 THC pill though.
Here in Texas they're busy removing the few shitty (and cheap) THC products that were previously allowed, after a change in federal law last year, regarding the 2018 Farm Bill. The feds are moving in the opposite direction of legaliza
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You are a fucking moron.
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Re: And suddenly (Score:4, Insightful)
It says something that you assume that just because Republicans have traditionally argued that state rights are fundamental to their platform that somehow Democrats were ever anti-state rights.
The problem with the Democratic policy positions is they have nuance and idiots do not understand nuance.
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I'm not sure that you had a point in this garbled nonsense of a post. The only thing you achieved is demonstrating that you're functionally illiterate.
Why are people calling these things âoepredic (Score:5, Insightful)
Theyâ(TM)re betting sites. Simple as that. Thereâ(TM)s no investment going on here. Itâ(TM)s just straight up gambling. Why are we letting them get away with the rebrand?
Re:Why are people calling these things âoepre (Score:5, Funny)
It's just straight up gambling. Why are we letting them get away with the rebrand?
Because I have have $250K riding the on the idea that we'll let them get away with it!
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A futures market is a prediction market as well. Most futures contracts are bought and sold with no intention of taking delivery. They are regulated at the federal level.
Straight forward gambling (activities where outcomes are determined by chance) is regulated by the states. However the Commerce Clause clearly grants the power to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government.
So we have a proper jurisdictional argument about who gets to regulate prediction markets and presumably who gets to colle
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Most futures contracts are bought and sold with no intention of taking delivery.
The key difference is that they still bought the contract. Betting on an outcome, the only stake is fictional. If you're wrong in a futures market, you might have overpaid for some grain and have to figure out what to do with it - you won't lose all of the value.
Re:Why are people calling these things "prediction (Score:2)
They are following the example set by Uber: Calling it "ride sharing" instead of a taxi service successfully got around the laws.
If it worked for them... why not for the online gambling industry?
Re:Why are people calling these things âoepre (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, you can use them for that.
But just go click on Kalshi's homepage and tell me what you see. Its sports betting.
So while sure you can bet.... er I mean trade... on market outcomes, you can also bet on sports. How is this different to what DraftKing or BetUS or whatever do?
These are gambling websites walking around in the mask of financial instruments.
And if the difference is the people betting have a stake in the outcome beyond that any other gambler would have, well we have a term for that, and that term is "rigged".
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I said it's not gambling if you have a real-world stake in an outcome. If you have no stake, then yeah, it's quite possibly just gambling. Or at best, speculating, like what many traders do in options and futures contracts.
To me, gambling applies to events whose outcome nobody can have any stake in, like the roll of dice on a crap table. Even for sporting events, someone can have a stake, be it the arena-owners, food-vendors, or other peripheral businesses who might see the season cut short if a team is kno
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I said it's not gambling if you have a real-world stake in an outcome.
your real world stake is the money you put into the BET. jesus christ man, at least TRY to make a logical argument.
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I said it's not gambling if you have a real-world stake in an outcome.
your real world stake is the money you put into the BET. jesus christ man, at least TRY to make a logical argument.
I did make a logical argument. You just didn't understand it.
By "real-world" I meant something tangible in human society that can affect someone's life or business. Dice rolling on crap tables do not qualify.
And your "stake" in a gambling bet does not arise from a consequence of external factors. It is created by you, with your choice to play. Don't play and there's no "stake."
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I said it's not gambling if you have a real-world stake in an outcome. If you have no stake, then yeah, it's quite possibly just gambling. ...
OK... so no stake = gambling; Stake in it makes it a valid prediction market somehow. And then...
And having a stake in an outcome does not mean you control the outcome. If that were the case, then yes, the game would be rigged and you shouldn't be allowed to trade in a polymarket -- at least not without the kinds of strict regulations that apply to insider traders of company stocks and other financial instruments.
So if you have a controlling stake in it (or insider knowledge - I'm adding that condition here), then the game is rigged and you shouldn't be allowed.
That means the prediction markets are made up of:
* lots of gambling
* lots of rigged BS
* extremely rare cases where someone has a stake in a prediction market, but has no insider knowledge about it, nor do they have a controlling stake in it.
It's hard to think of
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So if you have a controlling stake in it (or insider knowledge - I'm adding that condition here), then the game is rigged and you shouldn't be allowed.
I don't agree with the "insider knowledge" condition you smuggled into my premise. And I said a real-world stake, not a "controlling" stake. Strawman much?
Farmers betting on crop futures based on the weather maybe? Sorry... I mean "trading" on crop futures, LOL.
Futures markets can be an enormous help to farmers. They let farmers lock in a price for their crops well before the harvest, thus avoiding all of the market volatility (which other traders take on instead.)
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On my first point above: I just realized I missed the context, so my reply is not relevant. Sorry.
However, you (unrtst) haven't presented any evidence of the insider abuse you claim is present in polymarkets. If you have any, then please present it and we can talk about it. I'll say pre-emptively that if polymarkets cannot be regulated effectively, then they should be shut down, as Minnesota is trying to do.
But I do stand by my second point: futures markets do help farmers.
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On my first point above: I just realized I missed the context, so my reply is not relevant. Sorry.
No problem. I also conflated the "controlling" stake into my response - that wasn't an attempt to sneak a stawman past you.
However, you (unrtst) haven't presented any evidence of the insider abuse you claim is present in polymarkets. ...
There has been an excess of such examples in the news. Military leaders "investing" hours before mass bombings or deployment of blockades and such. The potential for abuse is obvious. So much of it would be defacto abuse if the fed didn't just say this is all fine.
But I do stand by my second point: futures markets do help farmers.
Honestly, I don't care if they help farmers. I do care about our farmers, and I believe there are loads of things we can and
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I said it's not gambling if you have a real-world stake in an outcome.
Ok, then it's insurance fraud.
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I said it's not gambling if you have a real-world stake in an outcome.
Ok, then it's insurance fraud.
Insurance fraud is committed by consumers, not insurance companies, in the form of fraudulent claims. That's not to say there have never been insurance companies that act fraudulently, by failing to pay out claims or not having the means to do so.
As for my suggestion that polymarkets can act like insurance, note that I didn't say they were just like insurance. They can behave in a similar way, by paying out in a situation where you suffer a loss. Options and futures contracts work in similar ways without ac
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That definition is bonkers. If I gamble in a casino, I have a real-world stake in an outcome. If I turn to my neighbour and make a side bet about the outcome of my primary bet, it doesn't become insurance, it's just another bet.
Secondly, calling them markets seriously is also bonkers. They are full of insider traders and professional quants who take most of the money from stupid college kids who are despe
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That definition is bonkers. If I gamble in a casino, I have a real-world stake in an outcome. If I turn to my neighbour and make a side bet about the outcome of my primary bet, it doesn't become insurance, it's just another bet.
You're confused about what is meant by a "stake". Suppose you're in the casino and you don't bet at all -- just watch the game. Does it matter what the outcome is? No -- so you don't have a stake in the game. In fact nobody who just watches has a stake in the game. The moment you bet, you create that "stake" artificially by now having a position you did not have previously.
Now imagine a real-world situation that affects the lives and businesses of people, not just an arbitrary roll of dice or spin of a roul
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I appear to be getting nowhere in this discussion with what constitutes a "stake" so let's try a different approach.
If you place money on a position pertaining to an outcome and you're happy when you win, then it just might be gambling (or investing.)
But if you place money on a position and you're happy when you lose -- then it's hedging, or taking out "insurance." You wanted to protect yourself from the consequences of a negative outcome, and the negative outcome didn't happen. In any case, it is definitel
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I think you missed the example I made: 1) make a bet in a casino. Now you have a stake. 2) make a second bet about the outcome of the first bet with the fellow gambler sitting at the table next to you. Now that second bet is not, ipso facto, a hedge. But it is a bet about an event that you have a real world stake in. So a real world stake is not a classifying feature.
Hedging is imperfect and costs money, but losing the money doesn't make you happy. You are only happy if the sum of the outcomes is positive
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I have a real-world stake in the outcome of a roulette spin. Either I win money or I don't. How is that any different than saying I win or lose if something happens or doesn't happen on one of these markets?
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They're not gambling if you have a real-world stake in an outcome addressed by one of these markets.
I have a real-world stake in the outcome of a roulette spin. Either I win money or I don't. How is that any different than saying I win or lose if something happens or doesn't happen on one of these markets?
You only have that stake because you placed a bet. If you hadn't, then you would have had no stake.
I'm talking about real-world situations where you could suffer consequences even if you don't "play" -- such as the outcome of elections, a sporting team's season cut short, the results of a trade deal, and so on. People can protect themselves in such situations by buying insurance. Polymarkets may not be a particularly robust way to obtain such "insurance" but arguably they are one way.
amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hilarious to see a federal government sue a state for banning an insanely unregularly shitshow.
"Minnesota banning prediction markets is like trying to ban the New York Stock Exchange,"
This is your future, United States. Just the dumbest shit spoken imaginable, in the service of protecting the freedom of separating people from their money, 24/7, backed up by an administration who nakedly wants dumb people to do dumb things - oh, the ways in which such policy posture enriches them personally? Totally unrelated.
Re:amazing (Score:4, Funny)
"Its legal when the president gets his taste."
The Sane Response from the Insanely Corrupt. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's hilarious to see a federal government sue a state for banning an insanely unregularly shitshow.
"Minnesota banning prediction markets is like trying to ban the New York Stock Exchange,"
This is your future, United States. Just the dumbest shit spoken imaginable, in the service of protecting the freedom of separating people from their money, 24/7, backed up by an administration who nakedly wants dumb people to do dumb things - oh, the ways in which such policy posture enriches them personally? Totally unrelated.
The first insanity, is labeling horrifically addictive gambling as "predictive markets" and pretending all the horrifically addictive shit simply goes away with a re-name. Especially for children who become horrific gambling junkies by age 15 off nothing more than loot boxes and Pokemon pack breaking.
The second insanity, is realizing THIS logical legislation, came from fucking Minnesota. Where imaginary children lear all day at the expense of taxpayers funding Somalian spending sprees. Like we need a pre
Re:amazing (Score:5, Funny)
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Proof?
Still waiting for that proof!
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I mean, it's difficult to prove a negative, but there was absolutely nothing in the movie to indicate that Biff Tannen was any sort of pedophile.
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From the summary:
Regulatorily, we've been able to differentiate gambling from securities for a long, long time. Similarly, we've been able to differentiate state-sanctioned lotteries from other forms of gambling.
Not sure why you think that would break down in this case.
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From the summary:
Regulatorily, we've been able to differentiate gambling from securities for a long, long time. Similarly, we've been able to differentiate state-sanctioned lotteries from other forms of gambling.
Not sure why you think that would break down in this case.
Agreed, and furthermore, on what grounds are we saying that powerball is something we should be protecting?
Re: amazing (Score:4, Interesting)
Stock market prediction gambling is already illegal in some states under anti bucket shop laws, and there's already a federal law that prohibits state bucket shop law from applying to securities EXCEPT for securities that give pari-mutuel payouts, which is exactly what prediction markets do.
Re: amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason we allow the stock market is ostensibly because people who are gambling are providing a service to the companies they are gambling on. The added cash allows those companies to do things they otherwise wouldnâ(TM)t be able to.
Prediction markets are just pure gambling. No investment, just betting.
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Stock market isn't gambling though. You are given clear comparative information for companies listed on the market. You have an undefined reward. When you invest you get rights in the company (e.g. voting rights at AGMs), stocks often pay fixed dividends, and most importantly, you can choose to withdraw at any point.
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It literally does always work like that. That is you in control of your investment. Now *you* can decide to gamble on the market, you can decide to turn anything into a game of chance. Heck you can decide to flip a coin and see if you're drinking a coke or a beer. That doesn't mean having a coke and a beer in the fridge is gambling.
Re: amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
The stock market is not gambling. You are provided with a wealth of information to make an informed investment decision which results in an undetermined reward. The information provided follows strict regulations and is required to be consistent for all parties listed on a stock exchange. When you buy stock you get voting rights in the company, and many stocks additionally provide dividend payouts regularly at intervals defined in advance. There's significantly less element of chance, and there's the ability to back out of your investment at any time.
Compare that to actual gambling on prediction markets where you put a fixed sum in on some random thing you don't have consistent information about with the promise of fixed reward if by *chance* your guess was correct.
By equating the two you make it clear you don't know much about one of them (or both of them).
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The stock market is not gambling.
It absolutely is gambling. There may be a wealth of information provided; however, all parties are incentivized to lie. Is the board going to sell out to private equity? Is the next CEO going to be an utterly incompetent nepo baby? Is a hostile takeover going to happen? There is an infinite amount of information that the investor knows nothing about; therefore, it is ALL gambling.
"Buy index funds" Why? So Goldman Sachs can dump losing stocks into my portfolio?
It is gambling.
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You buy index funds so that your returns are determined by the entire stock market, not individual companies.
Index funds + hold + time = a winning formula. Even If your entry timing really sucks, you will still come out ahead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://awealthofcommonsense.c... [awealthofcommonsense.com]
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It absolutely is gambling.
Repeating something doesn't make is so.
There may be a wealth of information provided; however, all parties are incentivized to lie.
And yet doing so comes with consequences that allow shareholders to recoup costs. Regulations are in place to address lying.
Is the board going to sell out to private equity?
This enriches shareholders. You will get paid.
Is the next CEO going to be an utterly incompetent nepo baby?
That is something shareholders have an actual say in. It's like you've never been to an AGM before. And even if the next CEO is a nepo baby, you have the ability to withdraw your investment before they start.
Is a hostile takeover going to happen?
Shareholders have a right to vote on accepting a hostile takeover.
There is an infinite amount of information that the investor knows nothing about; therefore, it is ALL gambling.
No it's not infinite. Most th
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The stock market is not gambling.
The stock market is a game of chance you win by gaining money and lose by losing money. Hence "playing the market". Many people consider the market a form of gambling.
You are provided with a wealth of information to make an informed investment decision which results in an undetermined reward
Ditto for horse racing and sports betting.
There's significantly less element of chance, and there's the ability to back out of your investment at any time.
Risk depends on what stocks you buy.
Compare that to actual gambling on prediction markets where you put a fixed sum in on some random thing you don't have consistent information about with the promise of fixed reward if by *chance* your guess was correct.
I don't think this kind of differentiation works. The prediction markets have mechanisms that resemble stock trading. You can for example buy and sell positions. This isn't a fixed decision you make once and that's it. You can change your mind as you get more i
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The stock market is a game of chance you win by gaining money and lose by losing money.
It's not a game of chance any more than life itself is a game of chance. You have information to make educated informed decisions. You adjust those to suit your risk profile. You can treat it like gambling but to do so would be akin to running a random number generator to pick out stock tickers and throwing your money in there. If you are stupid you can gamble on the stock market. That doesn't make the stock market itself a gamble.
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This would be more credible if people were required to hold stocks and other commodities for a lengthy period of time, such as a month or even a year, and there were no options (or maybe just much more restricted options for some commodities, such as until the next harvest date, if that was useful for farmers).
The inability to back out of an investment is one of the very things which would make it gambling.
Re: amazing (Score:2)
We're you like, held out of school or something? It's hard to believe people can reach adulthood with such a hilariously shitty grasp of basic reasoning.
PSA (Score:5, Funny)
Guys, I just found out that Polymarket is *not* what you would think it was based on the name.
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Prediction Markets (Score:5, Funny)
Bet they didn't see that coming
Re:Prediction Markets (Score:5, Funny)
Bet they didn't see that coming
$100 says they did!
misleading sensationalism article bait headline (Score:1)
Prediction markets; hosting prohibited.
A person is guilty of a felony if the person, for consideration and as part of a business:
(1) creates a prediction market;
(2) operates, manages, or controls a platform or system intending that consumers will use the platform or system to make wagers in a prediction market; (3) intentionally facilitates the operation of a prediction market by:
(i) identifying or listing events knowing the events will be used by consumers to ma
Trump is just protecting his money grabs (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump and cronies appear to indulge in insider trading [bbc.co.uk] on these prediction markets.
Meanwhile IRS is banned from auditing Trump’s past tax returns [theguardian.com] -- what does Trump have to hide ?
Re:Trump is just protecting his money grabs (Score:5, Insightful)
what does Trump have to hide ?
At this point, does anyone even care? No one questions the king, especially not his loyal servants. The man has 34 felony convictions and is still supported. He could probably dismember a baby in the middle of the street live in front of everyone and MAGA will still remind everyone that this was the devil baby and it was the right thing for King Jesus Trump to do.
Everyone already thought he was highly corrupt with money long ago. It really doesn't matter what he's hiding from the IRS. What they gonna do, slap him with a 35th felony conviction?
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That is a legit way to make money on the stock market and commodities market... short selling.
Re:Trump is just protecting his money grabs (Score:5, Informative)
Trump and cronies appear to indulge in insider trading [bbc.co.uk] on these prediction markets.
Donald Jr is on the board of Polymarket: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/2... [cnbc.com]
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what does Trump have to hide
$100 million owed from claiming the same expenses twice.
From 2024:
https://www.propublica.org/art... [propublica.org]
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Donald, is that you?
Need to make it worse (Score:2)
Start punishing the users in your jurisdiction.
It's because it takes away from the state lottery (Score:1, Troll)
... Which is likely another slush fund for politicians
Prediction markets are "accessible" to the general public in a way that the stock market is not, from a comfortability standpoint.
The random person on the street is gambling if they buy or short a stock. They haven't done the reasearch nor are they likely capable or motivated to.
But prediction markets offer intuitive things they can trade on comfortably (even if they don't do it wisely).
So the growth of prediction markets likely kills a golden goose in
Re:It's because it takes away from the state lotte (Score:4, Funny)
They haven't done the research nor are they likely capable or motivated to.
For most people, stock market investing is pretty easy:
- Buy VTI. If possible, do it in an IRA or 401k.
- Hold on to it.
The Bogleheads [bogleheads.org] philosophy absolutely works.
The challenge for many is having funds to invest, especially if they do stupid things like gambling in prediction markets.
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The difference has nothing to do with the knowledge.
In the stock market, the money put in is actually used to advance the value of the stock. It's an investment just like you paying somebody to make widgets (that manufacturer could screw up his work and lose all your money, but that possibility does not make it gambling). In polymarket the money you put in is not used in any way to advance the outcome you are betting on.
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>intuitive
lol, that's one word for insider knowledge
a word for everyone else is Sucker
the only difference with the new game is who gets a house cut
I don't disagree, but there's a deeper point... (Score:1)
Average person -> Views stock market as a fairly risky thing. They don't know about portfolio, indexing, straddles, and such.
They only know "buy it if you think it's going to go up, sell it if you think it's going to go down".
And you are 100% right about them probably not having the finances to do this many times. RobinHood and fractional shares were an attempt to solve that problem but I'm not sure if it's in the mindset of the average bear.
I'm really talking about the people in the lower socio-econom
States' rights, what rights (Score:2)
Yeah right (Score:1)
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.
Bingo! There's why.
This isn't about gambling. (Score:1)
The part about banning prediction markets is a distraction. What they're actually after is VPNs. They want to outlaw your privacy so they can collect your data. This is explicitly a part of the package. They are outlawing VPNs so they can track you down.
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Good luck with that.
Businesses rely on VPNs. There is absolutely no way they can be banned without causing utter collapse of business connectivity.
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They've been collecting your data since easily WW1.
Now that everyone has cell phones, it's a piece of cake to track you down.
Seems you woke up a little late (Score:2)
They want to outlaw your privacy so they can collect your data.
They are already collecting your data.
They are outlawing VPNs so they can track you down.
VPN or not they are already tracking you down.
hmm, why is Trump defending prediction markets (Score:4, Interesting)
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This will need to go to the US Supreme Court (Score:3)
Nevada, Maryland, and Ohio federal district courts sided with states.
Nevada: Dissolved Kalshi injunction; ruled sports contracts resemble gambling, not CFTC swaps.
Maryland: Denied preemption; state gambling laws apply.
Ohio: Denied injunction; similar reasoning.
New Jersey and Tennessee courts have favored Kalshi/CFTC.
Ooh ooh ooh! (Score:2)
Love it (Score:2)
Republicans just wear the irony on their shoulders at this point. Zero fks to give about any of the values they used to stand for. Wars, budget, family values? pppsshshshsh we're making $$, to hell with your outdated "values"
Law and order party fighting like to hell to normalize sports booking? Totally fking scans. Eventually, when it blows up in their face and legions of gambling addicts do what they always do, these ghouls will find a way to blame Biden and the dems for letting them do it.
Just another day
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Ban Wall St. financialization chicanery too (Score:2)
Re:What about being in a free country (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem here isn't scams and grift. It's that by growing the number of bets by orders of magnitude, you grow the number of insiders with insider info by orders of magnitude. Which creates perverse incentives across your entire economy for people to profit off of their status, while simultaneously making it much harder to do so.
Say there's a bet on whether Russia will take the village of Mala Tokmachka by a certain date. Well, now every Russian commander on that front has an incentive to have family members / friends bet against it and then delay / undercut their ability to wage incentives, while every soldier also has the incentive to do so and then do everything they can to spoil the offensive.
Or say the US is planning a major offensive in Iran, and various insiders are betting *on* an imminent attack. Well, Iran can feed Polymarket data into their intel assessments as one factor to help determine when the US will invade in order to maximize their readiness. OR, Iranian intel services could track down US officials / military officers who are making these bets based on insider info and blackmail them in order to get them to cooperate.
Every single aspect of society that gets bet on gets subtly undercut by the existence of these bets. It's one thing to have bets be placed on sports, an action that by definition is entertainment, something that doesn't actually matter. But it's an entirely different thing to have bets on virtually everything in our world. It's already been a problem with stock trading, but sites like Polymarket make it so, so much worse.
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Your points are so closely aligned with it that I suspect you watched the same video as I have, but I'd highly recommend this video from Perun (and his channel in general) to anyone who finds the subject interesting: Wagering on War - How Insider Trading Destroys Armies [youtube.com]
War has always been horrific. Murder, rape and pillage. Gambling on the outcomes sucks too, but for those on the ground it probably doesn't make an awful lot of difference.
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The problem here isn't scams and grift.
It's that by growing the number of bets by orders of magnitude, you grow the number of insiders with insider info by orders of magnitude
I fail to see the difference between these two things. In this case, "insiders" are more of a part of the scams and grift than almost anywhere else.
Re: What about being in a free country (Score:2)
The US hasn't been free this century.
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The US hasn't been free this century.
The US has never been a completely anarchistic hellhole - we've always had laws (aka regulations). Gambling, for example, was very tightly regulated for hundreds of years and only recently has been opened wide (with all the expected problems).
If you're desperate for capital-F Freedom, I hear Somalia is pretty lawless. You can go set up a compound and fiefdom there.