How Kalshi Infects the News • Hacker News Board

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#121

Post by thrance » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #115

thrance wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your assessment, the ban wasn't undone because of secularism. In fact, this prediction market craze was embraced by the right almost instantly, which is the side currently most favored by Christians.

Gambling bans have been slowly undone for decades. This isn’t something that happened in the recent MAGA populist era; which is the portion of the right that seems to be okay with the gambling stuff.

I mean, white evangelicals largely sided with Trump last year, so I don't know how cleanly you can separate Christianity (as it currently exists in the USA) from MAGA populism and what policies the movement favors.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#122

Post by lenerdenator » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

baggachipz wrote: post #3

The unprecedented era of gambling on literally everything everywhere is an absolute cancer on society, made completely legal by absolute greed and degeneracy at the highest levels of government. I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

> I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

You severely punish those involved with prison time for whatever you can find on them. And I'm not talking a few months at Club Fed.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#123

Post by com2kid » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

It's funny, the only place I see Kalshi mentioned is here on HN for articles about how bad Kalshi is. Same for all the sports betting sites.

I'm sure they are all bad, but damned if I never encounter them outside of HN.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#124

Post by lenerdenator » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:17 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #55

rescripting wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a market for the gamblification of everything because there is no other widely accessible path for young people to build a future. A college degree is no longer a guaranteed path to a stable, well paying job. Building wealth through real estate is no longer viable. With no clear options the only visible path to building a modicum of wealth is timing the next big crypto rugpull, hitting a 5 leg parlay, rippin…

That perception bears almost no relation to reality. The most reliable path to building a modicum of wealth has remained the same for generations: start a small business in some boring field and work your ass off for 80 hrs/wk. Building wealth through real estate is also still totally possible outside of the HCOL metro areas. Try unfashionable areas like Cleveland or Oklahoma City. And let's not have any low-effort c…

> The most reliable path to building a modicum of wealth has remained the same for generations: start a small business in some boring field and work your ass off for 80 hrs/wk.

Hardly. My grandfather was working under union rules as a machinist. No education beyond the 8th grade and what he learned in the US Navy during WWII. He was able to afford a house in a Lower Midwestern city (one that would be considered LCOL) and five kids.

I have a bachelor's degree that's paid for, a decent paying software job, and no wife/kids. Wanna guess how many homes I own in the same city?

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#125

Post by georgemcbay » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #31

baggachipz wrote: post #3

The unprecedented era of gambling on literally everything everywhere is an absolute cancer on society, made completely legal by absolute greed and degeneracy at the highest levels of government. I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

What I find almost as depressing is evidently the concerted push to normalize this practice. We were all shocked by Polymarket, but meanwhile others just saw it as yet another emerging market - and now CNN is including it in news segments as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

> CNN is including it in news segments as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

As someone who doesn't pay much attention to traditional news stations much these days, I was kind of taken aback by the over-the-top product placements they do now when exposed to it.

See for example:

https://youtu.be/9BPO-swW5eo?si=vLExNIXfeQmYHIDc&t=340

@5:40 (if your platform doesn't carry over the timestamp)

Polymarket/Kalshi are far more damaging to society than soda, but seeing this I was struck by how we've reached a point where the old Wayne's World product placement gag wouldn't even read as satire anymore, that's just how things actually are now.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#126

Post by keiferski » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

thrance wrote: post #121

keiferski wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gambling bans have been slowly undone for decades. This isn’t something that happened in the recent MAGA populist era; which is the portion of the right that seems to be okay with the gambling stuff.

I mean, white evangelicals largely sided with Trump last year, so I don't know how cleanly you can separate Christianity (as it currently exists in the USA) from MAGA populism and what policies the movement favors.

I don’t think it’s that difficult. Evangelicals’ beliefs and who they vote for are not the same thing; they largely seem to have voted for his Supreme Court nominees and consequently decisions like Roe. That’s a reality of a two party system.

Evangelicals are also but one branch of Christianity, something like a third of American Christians, so to suggest that it is the same is wrong from the start.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#127

Post by Austiiiiii » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

baggachipz wrote: post #3

The unprecedented era of gambling on literally everything everywhere is an absolute cancer on society, made completely legal by absolute greed and degeneracy at the highest levels of government. I don't know how we put this genie back in the bottle (amongst many detrimental genies).

Yeah, the prevailing fear (at least out loud) is that going after "outcome markets" would open Pandora's box on everything from options and futures to the very concept of insurance. Obviously there's a huge and easily definable difference, but people love their slippery slopes, and nuanced discussion would mean giving up an easy way for connected people to cash in on non-public knowledge.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#128

Post by throwitaway222 » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #86

nradov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That perception bears almost no relation to reality. The most reliable path to building a modicum of wealth has remained the same for generations: start a small business in some boring field and work your ass off for 80 hrs/wk. Building wealth through real estate is also still totally possible outside of the HCOL metro areas. Try unfashionable areas like Cleveland or Oklahoma City. And let's not have any low-effort c…

“Building wealth through real estate” should not be possible, and it’s half the reason we’re in this mess: people treating their homes as a store of wealth and blocking new construction to protect the value of their investment has locked young people out of the housing market. Hence all the gambling. What you should be hoping is that YIMBY policies carry the day in the end and “building wealth through real estate” is…

> Building wealth through real estate should not be possible

I am sympathetic to this argument, but there are problems. How do you get homes built if you make this change?

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#129

Post by SoftTalker » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

everforward wrote: post #64

SoftTalker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An FSA should not be a "bet" it should be set up for expenses you know you are going to need to pay: dependent care, recurring care and prescriptions, planned procedures. Your employer, not you, owns the account and keeps any balance remaining at the end of the year so you should not really guess at how much you contribute. An advantage of the FSA is that the full contribution is available immediately but the payroll…

Those things are less static than you seem to believe. Eg recurring prescriptions; at least once a year my insurance gets mad about my scripts and requires a pre authorization that occasionally contains a stipulation that I try their “preferred” (read: cheaper for them) alternatives. My planning is now wrong. Likewise I can only do FSA for planned procedures if I know close to a year ahead of time, which isn’t super…

Again, the FSA is for known expenditures, not unknown or variable. It's not perfect and I'm not really even defending it; I think an HSA is generally a better idea but the FSA does have certain specific advantages.

Re: How Kalshi Infects the News

#130

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Jul 06, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #96

nradov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That perception bears almost no relation to reality. The most reliable path to building a modicum of wealth has remained the same for generations: start a small business in some boring field and work your ass off for 80 hrs/wk. Building wealth through real estate is also still totally possible outside of the HCOL metro areas. Try unfashionable areas like Cleveland or Oklahoma City. And let's not have any low-effort c…

Just start a small business, or build wealth through real estate is a take that indicates some severe divorce from the reality of poverty in America. You need both capital (which folks don’t have access to) and the ability to absorb risk (which folks don’t have access to). Similar advice is in the vein of just stay with your parents for free, have a relative invest $50,000 in your business to start it up. This runs c…

Upward mobility still occurs in the US, at all levels. While the advice is difficult, almost impossible, for most to apply, it is sometimes applicable.

One of the main issues is that a lot of advice is presented as an unconditional, absolute guarantee to success. A college degree was never a guarantee of future success (contrary to great-grandparent's assertion), but the push to get everyone to get a college degree has rendered its utility as a helpful marker much more useless. Similarly, the ability to start your own business is difficult for most people, but even for poorer individuals, it is possible to start, say, a cleaning service with very little assets. (At the same time, such businesses are unlikely to make a whole lot of money at the end, but you might be able to move from working class to middle class, e.g.). A lot of contractor businesses--your plumbers and the like--are going to be from the lower middle class or middle class, and you can make some good money there, although that is also likely to be at the cost of your health much sooner than you expect.