There’s a reason both Kalshi and Polymarket were quick to make political connections (aka pay bribes). They know what they are doing is illegal, and waiting for legislation like sports betting apps did would take too long. So they bought get out of jail free cards instead.

When will we start holding the people who found and operate companies whose sole purpose is to break the law accountable, rather than letting them hide behind "limited liability"?

These founders should be in prison for promoting illegal gambling. Same federal charges mafiosos get caught on for a "friendly card game".

I'm not sure specifically about the moral crusade against Kalshi and Polymarket, but I am glad to see that at least one state is serious about its sovereignty and is willing to go to the mat with criminal charges. Utah 100% has a right to enforce this and I hope they are successful. And taking on the feds too, that is a gutsy move.

We need at least one state to do this when large corporations violate privacy laws.

Wonder how proxies/VPNs play into this, since Utah was recently in the news about an age verification law that basically said you're liable if anyone physically in Utah accesses a restricted site.

I wonder if VCs should share responsibility or if their role should be purely to maximize monetary gains.

States rights!

i feel like there's some provable equivalency between gambling and pyramid schemes

> Let's confirm you are human

Closes tab.

This is outrageous! They're tech founders! Penny-ante things like "the law" don't apply to them!

Somebody needs to tell Utah it needs to change its laws to adapt to their business plan, ASAP.

kalshi and polymarket are quite obvious gambling sites. any pedantic arguments to the contrary are strictly financial chaff to enhance their operating margins until the regulations finally catch up.

they were never an innovating marketing play... it was the culmination of a gambling company committing to regulatory capture as evinced by Donald Trump Jr (totally not) sitting on BOTH BOARDS as a "paid strategic advisor" or whatever lie they want to spin.

Now do video game lootboxes.

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As much as I am a fan of being able to see the current probability of a future event by checking prediction markets - the argument that there is a meaningful difference between predicting the outcome of a sports game and betting on the outcome of a sports game strains credulity.

Personally I’m a fan of the non sports side of these apps, Polymarket in particular. They are putting a financial incentive behind accurately predicting the future, which makes these apps basically the most accurate predictor of the future. Available to anyone to view, for free.

It makes sense why they went towards sports gambling, because the market is so big.

Just the day I saw a post in the Guardian referring to these things as prediction markets. It's so outrageous and undeserved

Nobody should ever be threatened with prison time because of a jurisdictional dispute between federal and state governments. That's antithetical to the rule of law, regardless of the specifics of the law or the jurisdictional dispute.