Neither conservative nor Mormon, but online gambling is an addictive scourge that ruins lives, and I'd love to see it banned broadly. And go ahead and ban paid loot boxes as well.
I don't love casinos or lotteries, but at least there's the friction of having to travel to a physical location to feed your addiction.
And then there's the whole "insider trading" and "gambling on war" angles that come into play with prediction markets.
We should distinguish between the moral condemnation of a behavior and the desire to outlaw it. The latter is hardly Christian in any universal sense and seems to be mostly an effect of Protestant puritanism. For example, many saints have argued to tolerate prostitution and other vices for the sake of man's weakness.
Shame that prediction markets seem to have failed a bit, since they seem in principle like a good idea. You force participants to have skin in the game and remove the usual mood affiliation and ideological bias that afflicts the professional commentariat in the media.
Perhaps a solution instead of banning them would be to create a class similar to accredited investors that are allowed to participate. And stuff like market manipulation should just be prosecuted in old fashioned ways like we prosecute any crime.
I think they should be legal, but the amount of marketing and pushing around them is so bad.
It's like you make something legal, and some group of people try as hard as possible to push the limit as far as they can, and in turn ruin for everyone.
These markets are a straightforward way to cut through all the noise of the current media conglomerates. Rather than getting bombarded by inflated headlines a glance at polymarket or kalshi is often enough to know whether something is actually happening or it's just the media corporations trying to get your attention.
Of course there should be limits with regards to what kind of markets are allowed on these platforms. But in a lot of areas there's genuine price discovery happening that's not available anywhere else.
Prediction markets were a lot more useful and benign when it was nerds staking small amounts of money for fun. I still think they're fun but it's clear that the prediction market platform companies aren't interested in staying a fun niche business for nerds.
I'd like to first see all advertisements for gambling banned. Then lets take a look at the data after 1-2 years.
Or if you allow it put a warning like the surgeon generals warning on tobacco. Clearly state that most people lose money.
Smoking is legal but advertising cigarettes is illegal. I grew up in the 1980's where smoking was everywhere. We even had a smoking area at school. Today I don't know anyone that smokes. Obviously people still do but it is much less common
I think the biggest problem with prediction markets can be solved with some law that would remove anonymity from those who trade, from the perspective of some regulating body* . now I know what I just said and I'm sure to be downvoted to hell for suggesting such a thing, but this would make it much easier to fight insider trading, assassination markets/equivalents, ect
You could just force the biggest entities in this space to comply and people wouldn't care enough about secretly betting on wars so it would all work out.
* if you make it so that everyone sees what their neighbor betted on then overall predictions will become less accurate due to social signaling
13 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 40.7 ms ] threadI don't love casinos or lotteries, but at least there's the friction of having to travel to a physical location to feed your addiction.
And then there's the whole "insider trading" and "gambling on war" angles that come into play with prediction markets.
* researchers found that prediction markets are actually good for your wellbeing
* lobby group is lobbying to fight against Utah lawmakers who are working against the wellbeing of people in Utah
Perhaps a solution instead of banning them would be to create a class similar to accredited investors that are allowed to participate. And stuff like market manipulation should just be prosecuted in old fashioned ways like we prosecute any crime.
It's like you make something legal, and some group of people try as hard as possible to push the limit as far as they can, and in turn ruin for everyone.
These markets are a straightforward way to cut through all the noise of the current media conglomerates. Rather than getting bombarded by inflated headlines a glance at polymarket or kalshi is often enough to know whether something is actually happening or it's just the media corporations trying to get your attention.
Of course there should be limits with regards to what kind of markets are allowed on these platforms. But in a lot of areas there's genuine price discovery happening that's not available anywhere else.
Or if you allow it put a warning like the surgeon generals warning on tobacco. Clearly state that most people lose money.
Smoking is legal but advertising cigarettes is illegal. I grew up in the 1980's where smoking was everywhere. We even had a smoking area at school. Today I don't know anyone that smokes. Obviously people still do but it is much less common
You could just force the biggest entities in this space to comply and people wouldn't care enough about secretly betting on wars so it would all work out.
* if you make it so that everyone sees what their neighbor betted on then overall predictions will become less accurate due to social signaling