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FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

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Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#201

Post by rty32 »

stephen_g wrote: post #166
rty32 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO or the company can only be in trouble if they are found guilty in court. That's not going to happen in the next two months, and Trump probably couldn't care less about this.

I'm not in the US, but as far as I know about the country the legal system there keeps running whether the current US President cares about individual cases or not...

Such cases would be pursued by DOJ or FCC or some other federal agency that the President has 100% control over. If the president asks to drop the case, it will be dropped.

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#202

Post by 082349872349872 »

kragen wrote: post #198
082349872349872 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If sending spam required posting a bond ... to be paid to the receiver if they decided the email was unwanted... Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like diplomatic exchanges during the Bronze Age: sending your ambassador along with a bunch of gifts like exotic animals and spices and slaves was an implicit way of saying "I'm confident you'll want to hear my guy out; confident enough that if you don't think his p…

The lagniappe has many uses.

speaking of which, any chance I could get you to double check my math in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42125052 ? If Jim Gray's 5 minute rule has, via SSDs, really turned into the 1 week rule, that ought to be reflected in any new OS development?

for good measure, Mark Twain on lagniappe:

> The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the governor—I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#203

Post by creatonez »

Good? These gambling machines are predatory and destructive institutions and needed to be shut down a long time ago. Everything a casino touches turns into hyper-capitalistic dystopia, they are the wealthy elites' worst exploitation, distilled and refined into a poison.

And now they are trying to play with society from the top-down by rebranding as "prediction markets for everything", not only pretending to sell a crystal ball but also setting up the incentives for those at the top of the financial system to destroy society and bet on the destruction of society at the same time. I say: shatter their poker chips, dissolve the house, don't allow them to accumulate any more of this type of power.

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#204

Post by kragen »

082349872349872 wrote: post #202
kragen wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lagniappe has many uses.

speaking of which, any chance I could get you to double check my math in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42125052 ? If Jim Gray's 5 minute rule has, via SSDs, really turned into the 1 week rule, that ought to be reflected in any new OS development? for good measure, Mark Twain on lagniappe: > The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread…

I'll try! I think I'll need to read Gray's paper to understand the rule; I vaguely remember that I once knew what it was.

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#205

Post by bookaway »

moomin wrote: post #70
neilv wrote: post #28

> "This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election," a Polymarket spokesperson tells Axios. When I saw that statement, from a company spokesperson, it was striking. Is it now respectable and advisable for a corporation to make official statements like this?

There’s people in the comments characterising this as political positioning, and I think they’re dead on. However, it continues to do my head in how utterly ridiculous this statement is. Literally, there’s not even a motive.

Unless my memory is completely off, I don't recall Polymarket giving "Trump will win" vibes in the general lead up to the election. When they did, it was probably in the last few days.

If that's the case, I would've expected to the statement to be something like, "From our understanding, our only crime is to have presented an analysis that the outgoing administration also understood to be valid."

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#206

Post by caeril »

troad wrote: post #13
nickff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not familiar with the term 'gambling exchange', where'd you get it? Many 'sportsbooks' are referred to as 'betting exchanges', but that has become something of a term of art, much like the term 'prediction market'. In any case, attempting to use a derogatory or denigrating euphemism to refer to something is usually less productive than simply exposing (what you perceive to be) its faults. What specific issues do…

Not GP, but I suspect it's the gambling part? Hence the name? Gambling is a destructive addition that the vast majority of participants cannot manage well. It harms not only them, but their children and their spouses. How many a kid's college fund has gone up in smoke? A lot of harm is done to very innocent people in pursuit of a ten second rush. (Much like all other addictions.) I also very respectfully disagree tha…

These markets are no more "gambling" than other markets are.

A traditional sportsbook maintains a house vig anywhere from 5 to 15%, which is, indeed, a pretty fast path to ruin. They typically don't allow you to exit your position once you're committed.

Polymarket's sports markets, in contrast, have comparable bid/ask spreads to financial markets (maybe slightly wider), and the market is liquid such that you can sell your contract to someone else whenever you want.

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#207

Post by caeril »

orblivion wrote: post #43
legitster wrote: post #4

Obviously there are no details yet, but I suspect it's as simple as: - Polymarket is still very illegal in the US - Lol. We all know it's easy to get around that - If the CEO knew or was complicit in US citizens breaking laws, he could be in trouble. And if there was evidence he was encouraging it, he could be in big trouble

Kalshi got the goahead from an appeals court to list election bets. I think Robinhood added election bets soonafter. Is there a reason that wouldn't apply to Polymarket? Granted, Polymarket was operating before that ruling. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-federal-court-upholds-rulin...

Yes, because Polymarket offers sports markets, which are still illegal in the US (for US users, anyway). Kalshi has been careful to offer markets in basically everything except sports.

It should be obvious what happened here: Polymarket has been offering grey or black markets to users, using only IP address as the discriminator, which is very easy to work around. They've operated under the Feds' radar for quite some time, and the Feds noticed them after they started getting significant press regarding the election.

The election is the reason they got noticed, but the likely crime itself is sports, not elections.

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#208

Post by jtbayly »

rty32 wrote: post #201
stephen_g wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the US, but as far as I know about the country the legal system there keeps running whether the current US President cares about individual cases or not...

Such cases would be pursued by DOJ or FCC or some other federal agency that the President has 100% control over. If the president asks to drop the case, it will be dropped.

He would have to care about the case to bother doing so…

Re: FBI Raids Home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan

#209

Post by [deleted] »

Tenoke wrote: post #154
Terr_ wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> letting people learn what's happening in the world around us I think that phrasing is a bit too optimistic. Even in cases where the "prediction" cannot influence the outcome, the primary "learning about the world" involves the imputed opinions of bettors. Betting at horse-races doesn't teach you nearly as much about horses as actually going to the stables. :P

Err, checking the line on a horse race is a much more reliable way to tell who has what chance of winning than going to the stables as a random person, and most likely for a professional as well.

[deleted]
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