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Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

reuters.com

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Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#291

Post by hunterpayne »

arter45 wrote: post #117
gventura18 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it bad to take out a life insurance policy right before you have a medical procedure?

If the only person who can get the money is you (or your partner or children or whatever), it’s fine as a form of compensation for potential damages. If anyone, including your surgeon, can take that life insurance policy based on your life, things can go bad pretty quickly (hint: what happens if a profit-maximizing surgeon would earn a lot more money from your policy than from his regular job?).

This is why people who work in sports can't bet on sports. This is literally a solved problem. The current laws outlaw your examples already.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#292

Post by solenoid0937 »

akersten wrote: post #63
solenoid0937 wrote: post #7

These - especially Polymarket - should be illegal globally, as they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world in horribly destructive ways to win a bet. I would not be surprised if people are murdered at some point to reap the payout of some related bet.

> they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world in horribly destructive ways to win a bet. How does the same line of argument not also suggest that stock markets be prohibited?

stock markets have very strict KYC

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#293

Post by abustamam »

burkaman wrote: post #271
swingboy wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think they allow bets regarding if someone is going to die or not?

All of these "politican out" markets will resolve to true if the politician dies: https://polymarket.com/predictions/out . The language is usually "This market will resolve to “Yes” if ceases to be ". Or for another example: https://polymarket.com/event/will-neymar-play-in-the-2026-fi... . Will Neymar play in the world cup? Not if he's dead. Any kind of "will celebrity appear in X in the future" can be reduced to an…

Kalshi supposedly does not pay out if a death is involved

https://xcancel.com/mansourtarek_/status/2029996077554815268

Not sure if Polymarket does the same. Also not sure if I really trust these people to be the arbiter of morality and adhere to their own rules when it doesn't benefit them.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#294

Post by hunterpayne »

Jensson wrote: post #168
mint5 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What predictions? Why is it useful to know what the odds are for Trump to the word “postage stamp” in a specific speech? Why are the sports odds useful? Word mention market and sports market are the majority of bets after all. Seems like >90% of wagers are useless noise. Name 7 recent useful ones you actioned based on, one for each day of the last week. I’m very curious what those may be that you use it daily. When I…

You can look at who is likely to become the next president for USA etc, it helps a lot to see what people who spent some effort looking into it thinks.

Bad example. Americans can only very recently even place trades on PM and even then its through other companies and most people don't know about this. Those markets are often very thin and manipulated by the campaigns themselves.

A better example is wagers on things like when the Iran war will end. That's actually useful 'wisdom of the crowds', and any insider trading is already illegal. Maybe someday those markets would get big enough to allow companies to hedge risks. That's an actual useful application of PMs.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#295

Post by abustamam »

hackyhacky wrote: post #276
stackedinserter wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Which is more likely: CNN commits murder to increase viewership; or any one of billions of people commits murder to win a bet?

Taking bets, long odds on CNN committing murder

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#296

Post by TZubiri »

embedding-shape wrote: post #107
TZubiri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

spain also blocks cloudflare for copyright infringement

To be a bit more specific, some Cloudflare IPs are unavailable for a few hours a week as Cloudflare, compared to other CDNs, aren't responding or acting on legal requests from Spanish judges.

Correct, to be even more specific. Cloudlfare uses a reputation pooling technique to provide anonimities to their clients (providers, through reverse proxies, in this case). Since cloudflare does not comply with requests to selectively stop distributing the banned content in Spain, and since ISPs cannot perform that filter due to header encryption like encrypted HELO, then the Spanish courts opt to perform the least destructive block which is to block based on time.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#297

Post by FireBeyond »

usrusr wrote: post #216
philipallstar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you are privately allowed to bet on whatever you like with another individual. That is indeed legally fine, though potentially distasteful. Polymarket is facilitating bets between people, not bets with the house. Gambling and insurance are both bets with the house.

Can you name the individuals you are betting with on Polymarket? Can they name you?

Gannon Ken Van Dyke has entered the chat.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#298

Post by cyberax »

imglorp wrote: post #91
solenoid0937 wrote: post #7

These - especially Polymarket - should be illegal globally, as they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world in horribly destructive ways to win a bet. I would not be surprised if people are murdered at some point to reap the payout of some related bet.

Very close already. Death threats went to this journalist; seems someone bet on missile hits. https://factkeepers.com/polymarket-gamblers-vow-to-kill-jour... It also incentivizes leaks from insiders, sometimes endangering others. A soldier was charged for betting on a military operation. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-clas... And of course throwing pro sports, but that's been happening for ag…

Throwing in pro sports is at least harmless for people who don't care about pro sports.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#299

Post by FireBeyond »

anthk wrote: post #153
CPLX wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell are you talking about? You are absolutely not allowed to bet on whatever you'd like with another individual. Depending on what you're betting on (for example, the price of a stock or the throw of a card), it falls under varying different regimes. This is highly regulated and has been for most of the whole of human history. Yes, there are de minimis exceptions. Your office NCAA pool, for example, is ofte…

In Spain in elderly caring homes there was a tradition to bet on Bingo matches for simbolic prices (barely one or two euros, enough for a coffee and that's it). It was legalized on paper recently, but technically everyone turned a blind eye. https://russpain.com/en/news-3/authorities-consider-legalizi... >Rarely exceed 25 euros. Maybe in Christmas, because the weekly play was just about low prizes.

It was, believe it still is, somewhat similar in Australia, where the game Two Up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-up), which was a wartime favorite among soldiers, was implicitly or allowed on Anzac Day despite being gambling.

Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

#300

Post by embedding-shape »

saltyoldman wrote: post #236
solenoid0937 wrote: post #7

These - especially Polymarket - should be illegal globally, as they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world in horribly destructive ways to win a bet. I would not be surprised if people are murdered at some point to reap the payout of some related bet.

Can someone give a more concrete example around all this? How do I cause someone to die using Kalshi or Polymarket, specifically, also without being caught? Didn't they catch someone that had pre-knowledge of the Venezuela campaign? (I'm not asking because I want to do this, I'm asking because it's not clear to me how this is realistically possible.) Also, given that you can't just create a market on either platform,…

> How do I cause someone to die using Kalshi or Polymarket, specifically, also without being caught?

Assuming you get away with the murder, guessing that's not the part you're asking about, a concrete example: https://polymarket.com/event/next-french-presidential-electi..., bunch of people on that list, surely many of them are like the typical European politician, mostly without assassination protection most of the time. Place a "No" bet on one of them, then hire someone to assassinate, and Polymarket indirectly drove someone to murder another person, as they could profit from it.

As a contract killer, I don't think you'd put yourself or your client more up in the fed sights than without Polymarket, it'd just look like another bet.

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