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White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets
- 113 5mo agoWhew! Glad that's sorted.
- mechoblast 5mo agoSurely half millions on prediction markets is pennies compared to what is getting made on oil futures/stocks.
- enoint 5mo agoYou’d think so, but these types of people are afraid of stocks or options and find prediction websites easier to use.
- Tangurena2 5mo agoIt is easier for the SEC to investigate futures, stocks & options. Some of the prediction/gambling markets use crypto and do not participate in "Know Your Customer" regulations.
- derwiki 5mo agoThey’re doing money transmission and they’re not doing KYC? Is that illegal or “really frowned upon”?
- skippyboxedhero 5mo agoIt is far easier in crypto. It is much more difficult in futures...as the case of a recent repeat Presidential candidate showed. That will change when people realise crypto isn't anonymous...but that day isn't today.
- bregma 5mo agoStep 1: Gut the SEC Step 2: Buy $100,000,000 in oil futures 15 minutes before bombing starts Step 3: ??? Step 4: PROFIT!!!
- rf15 5mo agoHonestly not that big a difference here. Both can be loosely interpreted as gambling, especially with the same rough upsides (money without production or consumption!) downsides (addiction, critical existence failure of all your savings) and the corruption and perverse incentives they invite.
- Havoc 5mo agoIt’s laughable that it’s even necessary to tell them. Hey don’t abuse privileged workplace information for personal gain isn’t exactly a fresh notion. Imagine if professionals like lawyers and accountants operated like that.
- tdeck 5mo agoConsider the kind of people who would staff this white house.
- whywhywhywhy 5mo agoIt's bipartisan, just look at Pelosi's portfolio.
- baggachipz 5mo agoAh, there's the whataboutism. Where are her bets in the prediction markets?
- whywhywhywhy 5mo agoThat's not what whataboutism is, markets are markets and insider trading is insider trading.
- asHqt14 5mo agoIt is understandable that they require coaching on this issue when betting markets are being deregulated and Trump Jr. is invested in Polymarket.
- p-o 5mo agoI'm sure it's a preventive measure and no one placed bets to enrich themselves in the last 12 months...
- mcs5280 5mo ago*unless they give the big guy a 50% cut
- josefresco 5mo agoInvestor highlights for each platform: Kalshi: Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Y Combinator, Charles Schwab, Henry Kravis (KKR), and CapitalG (Alphabet). Polymarket: Intercontinental Exchange (ICE - parent of the NYSE), Founders Fund (Peter Thiel), Vitalik Buterin, and 1789 Capital (Donald Trump Jr.). PredictIt: Primarily supported by Aristotle International (a political tech firm) and historically Victoria University of Wellington. Donald Trump Jr.: Prominent investor in Polymarket through his firm, 1789 Capital, and serves as a paid strategic advisor to Kalshi. The current CFTC Chairman, Michael Selig, created a 35-member panel to draft new regulations for prediction markets. This panel includes the CEOs of the platforms they regulate, such as Shayne Coplan (Polymarket) and Tarek Mansour (Kalshi).
- tdeck 5mo agoThese companies were blatant about operating illegally in the US. I remember being shocked to see the live billboard polymarket ads in Philadelphia on the eve of the election. I guess there are too many scandals these days for this to stand out.
- twelvedogs 5mo agoOnly the top guys are allowed to do insider trading! You guys are making it very very slightly more obvious!!
- ahartmetz 5mo agoDoes that include friends and cousins? Asking for a friend or cousin.
- exabrial 5mo agoWhile we’re at it, how about all Congress?
- adabyron 5mo agoYou need to apply it to staff as well and also the judicial branch and all of their staff. Then to all of their family as well. The way I understand insider trading is usually prosecuted is you find out who made the bet & then you have to track down their communications to see if they got tipped off.
- coldpie 5mo agoThere is currently a bill proposed to do that (for stocks, not prediction market betting, but eh it's a start): https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr5106 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr5106 It currently has 99 Democratic sponsors and 31 Republican sponsors (note: there are more Republicans than Democrats in the House). It will probably not make it out of committee. 2 of the 4 Democrats on the committee have sponsored it; 0 of the 8 Republicans have.
- ajross 5mo agoReasons to treat these situations differently: 1. The executive is doing very obvious insider trading, you can point at exact trades and bets that are clearly being made based on inside info. That's very different than the statistical arguments made about congressional portfolios. 2. Congress isn't privy to the same kind of inside info. Congress will know about changes in government spending with a few weeks to a month or so of lead time. The executive insiders were timing trades down, literally, to the minutes before the start of military action. Basically that's a terrible whataboutist game you're playing.
- dylan604 5mo agoI'm sure every POTUS has at one point thought it would be great if they could dictate what congress does
- bcjdjsndon 5mo agoWhen you elect a bunch of TV wannabes to run your country this is what happens.
- keviniam 5mo agoI don't understand why anybody without access to serious inside information is currently betting on prediction markets. It's clear that insiders are absolutely going to eat your lunch. So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? I guess this isn't true for all things you might bet on, but it seems to be true for a lot of them.
- ceejayoz 5mo ago> So who are the suckers who are losing all this money? Random people who saw an ad or their favorite influencer shilling it. Like when my neighbors started asking me about NFTs.
- mrguyorama 5mo agoThere does seem to be a distinct class of "Serial Bagholders" though. People who thought NFTs were going to be their "Ticket" and lost a lot, and then the next thing was going to be their "Ticket", etc etc. I genuinely don't understand how they have money to keep losing.
- ceejayoz 5mo agoThey don't. They're just gambling addicts.
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoKind of what I was thinking. If it is essentially InsidrBetz.com why bet at all? This is the kind of thing that could (should, anyway) kill the industry.
- jack_pp 5mo agoArrogance / hubris. Some people even if they know it's rigged will believe they know which side the insiders are on
- seanalltogether 5mo agoI remember reading something awhile ago in regards to why people were investing in NFTs when it seemed so clear they were a scam. The gist of it was that it's easy to get into cryptocurrency, but it's hard to get out. KYC, taxes, age requirements, currency fees, etc are enough of a barrier that many people would rather just keep those assets in virtual space. Polymarket is the answer to the question "Well what else am I gonna do with this crypto I own"
- feverzsj 5mo agoIsn't that in the law?
- cyanydeez 5mo agoIf it were in the law, which part of the justice system do you think would be: 1. Capable 2. Desirous of 3. Competently followed
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- daveguy 5mo agoIt is in SEC regulated markets like NYSE and NASDAQ. But prediction markets are grifty garbage. Insider trading laws only apply to regulated markets. Just about anything to do with crypto is sketchy. I don't know why anyone still messes with it. Maybe they just like propping up Iran's oil tolls, ransomware perps, and shovelling money to Dumpty and his merry band of grifters?
- qsort 5mo agoinsane they needed to be told
- ramon156 5mo agoNaughty! Anyway
- vntok 5mo ago"Oh behave! Hehehehehe" https://youtu.be/u2vAFhXDFHk https://youtu.be/u2vAFhXDFHk
- steveBK123 5mo agoAnd how about friends & family without official roles, congressional appointment process approvals, etc who just.. happen to be around a lot and involved in a lot of stuff?
- jeffwask 5mo agoPlease don't do insider trading. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
- nevi-me 5mo agoReminds me of our President (SA) asking his colleagues to sign a pledge not to do corruption; when there's already a swearing in that does the same thing.
- OutOfHere 5mo agoFor those who live in the red-pilled real world, just don't trade on something where controlling insiders (also with a potential conflict-of-interest) can beat you at the game. This is different from bets with non-controlling insiders with no conflict-of-interest.
- maerF0x0 5mo agoIsn't that nearly everything public?
- OutOfHere 5mo agoThe key is avoiding the bets with controlling insiders, i.e. those that could have a potential conflict of interest. Even something as banal as weather data has some insider knowledge, but an insider has no practical control over it, i.e. the insider is non-controlling, with no conflict-of-interest.
- chrisnight 5mo agoWeather data in prediction markets can definitely be gamed. One example that exists in real prediction markets is that the contract specifies a single source as the source of truth. But that source rounds data during unit conversion twice (F -> C -> F), meaning there’s an unequal probability distribution, and some numbers have a 0% chance of winning.
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- MikeNotThePope 5mo ago“Do as I say, not as I do.”
- josefritzishere 5mo agoIt is trully pathetic that this needs to be said.
- RankingMember 5mo agoIf there's one positive that can be made of this admin, it's the realization that all the things that we thought went without saying ("don't profit from the office", "don't insider trade", "don't casually leak confidential information to our enemies") need much stronger enforcement mechanisms.
- bregma 5mo agoThey didn't go without saying: there are laws on the books explicitly making them illegal. But a law that is not enforced is not justice, and a law that is unevenly enforced is an injustice.
- hydrogen7800 5mo agoToo much of our government requires/required its trustees to act in good faith. Clearly that was too vulnerable. And I realize it sounds naive to think that past trustees were acting in good faith, but there are relative degrees of that.
- MyHonestOpinon 5mo agoAside from the current horrible admnistracion. If I understand correctly, One of the strengths of prediction markets is to try to get the insiders to come in and provide insider information thus improving the total info available.
- dwaltrip 5mo agoOne of the weaknesses is incentivizing people to do horrible things, if that makes their bet a wining one.
- qsera 5mo agoIt also incentivize people to follow the events and remember stuff so that they are better equipped to make predictions. I think it incentivize people to use their head and may be even select better leaders.
- qsera 5mo agoI think the proper thing to do would be to forbid these markets to make bets on stuff that can be won by using only insider information.
- namenotrequired 5mo agoLike the stock market?
- qsera 5mo agoMmm..yea. But stock market is not something new, and this possibility always existed. So I was only thinking about Poloymarket and stuff like that.
- diab0lic 5mo agoI realize yours is the hip and edgy take but plenty of people have made a lot of money in the stock market without using material non public information.
- throwaway613746 5mo ago[dead]
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- DesiLurker 5mo agoits free for all at the moment. its not like any of these rule were ever enforced before, lots of our govt worked on honor system & DJT exploited the heck out of it all.
- polyterative 5mo agoOnly they can make the money.