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9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

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Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#151

Post by everforward »

tsimionescu wrote: post #142
inigyou wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who downvote: it's true. Look it up.

It's not true, as "dangerous" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. Just because Tylenol (acetaminophen) is highly toxic in actually quite small doses doesn't make it as dangerous as vicodin or morphine or heroin or meth or fentanyl. A drug is dangerous when it is toxic at an easily obtainable dose AND there is a clear incentive for people to consume it in that dose, such as addiction and tolerance. While ace…

Acetaminophen overdose does actually have a surprisingly high rate of occurrence. A lot of people don’t realize how narrow the therapeutic band is.

Doubling your meds on a bad pain day can put you way beyond the safe limits. People think it’s safe because basically every other OTC has a huge therapeutic band, and double dosing is not recommended but not really dangerous.

CDC estimates it at 56,000 ER visits a year, 26,000 hospitalizations, 458 deaths, about a hundred unintentional deaths per year. As a point of reference, it’s about 3 accidental overdose deaths per child that dies from being locked in a hot car.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#152

Post by everforward »

inigyou wrote: post #100
usefulcat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this comparison is that it only really serves to water down the very real harms of actual gambling. Unlike sports gambling or casinos, the stock market actually does have some legitimate utility, as compared to being (at best) pure entertainment.

At what ratio does it become a problem? 0.01% actual utility and 99.99% gambling, or?

The utility is always the same. The stock market provides price discovery, which drives efficient resource allocation (in theory).

Theoretically, more gamblers should mean better price discovery because the payouts for correctly taking the opposing side of the trade are higher.

The market solution would be that the gambling will eventually solve itself. They’ll either learn enough to be trading on knowledge rather than vibes, fueling price discovery, or they’ll exit the market when they’ve lost too much or everything.

My sticking point is that a lot of brokers offer leverage to people they really shouldn’t. I could have sworn you had to be a qualified investor to get leverage, but if that isn’t law it should be. Show the brokerage your certification, or a pile of cash large enough to convince them you can afford to lose the whole thing.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#153

Post by watwut »

alexpotato wrote: post #125
runako wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kalshi is just hoping to be treated like Uber was. This is not a bad strategy for a company in our asymmetric regulatory environment. Fortunes were made in crypto on exactly this one-way bet. Go on breaking the law until you get a favorable judge/Congress. Nobody is going to jail (we don't really do that anymore), you might pay a fine. Every once in a while you'll have change the app a little to sort of comply with…

This has been true in the opposite case too. e.g. make as much money as possible while you have a favorable judge/Congress/President b/c you assume the ability to make money will go away once the next regime is in power.

I mean, you wrote it as of there was an alternative pf these companies not trying to make as much money as possible.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#154

Post by jfengel »

dmix wrote: post #50
jfengel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have them because the Founders thought it was a good idea. Then they thought it was a good idea to have two houses with different criteria, giving two chances to quash legislation. Plus the veto. Plus the Supreme Court (whose job they left almost completely undefined, so they made up a job description). So we have them because we can't get rid of them. But they are practically useless. They can usually manage the…

That’s the history of separation of powers, the judiciary is the final check in the loop. It doesn’t fully explain why Congress has allowed the expansion of executive power for nearly a century, resulting in more and more major issues being pushed to the Supreme Court. That’s not to say states have lost power, their reach has also grown exponentially far outpacing even the federal in terms of number of workers and wr…

I think it does largely explain it. Congress can't do even necessary things. On the rare occasions they can, they create an executive branch agency and give it the power to write regulations. They know that Congress is neither qualified nor capable of handling it.

Then when the executive takes more power they have little ability to opposite it. Especially since there is a significant Congressional delegation who believes in the Unitary Executive theory, who will interfere with attempts to rein it in.

I believe it is entirely due to the Founders being intent on pitting Congress against itself, while the President is a single person. They initially tried a half-assed version of that by making the runner up Vice President, but that was quickly seen to be useless.

There is a lot more to be said over a quarter millennium, but that is the fundamental design flaw.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#155

Post by inigyou »

everforward wrote: post #152
inigyou wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what ratio does it become a problem? 0.01% actual utility and 99.99% gambling, or?

The utility is always the same. The stock market provides price discovery, which drives efficient resource allocation (in theory). Theoretically, more gamblers should mean better price discovery because the payouts for correctly taking the opposing side of the trade are higher. The market solution would be that the gambling will eventually solve itself. They’ll either learn enough to be trading on knowledge rather th…

I don't know if "theoretically" is good enough here. The theory hasn't really been tested or proven. It's more of a hypothesis, and an ideologically driven one at that.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#156

Post by inigyou »

gruez wrote: post #132
inigyou wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who downvote: it's true. Look it up.

Again, that's missing the point of drug regulation. There's plenty of substances even more dangerous than Tylenol, but aren't banned. "Drugs" are banned due to a combination of (perceived) harm to user/society, potential for abuse, as well as toxicity. That's why there's plenty of substances more toxic than Tylenol, but aren't banned.

But that's missing the point of the discussion. Yes things are banned based on perceived harm instead of actual danger, that's the point of the discussion.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#157

Post by [deleted] »

steveBK123 wrote: post #44
8note wrote: post #23

as an argument for sports betting as a market, i remember when the wrong team won the world series, and hadnt setup their correct merch and so on for online sales, and it was a disaster trying to get all the right stuff together to minimize fraud and abuse. if an online sales provider could hedge against the risk of that win, the gamble would help pay for all the chaos as a result

Lots of bespoke insurance already exists. Lloyds will insure your rocket cargo or even provide terrorist strikes. Doesn’t mean we need people wagering at kalshi on “number of terrorism fatalities in London before end of 2025”.

[deleted]

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#158

Post by treebeard901 »

highfrequency wrote: post #53
runako wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kalshi is just hoping to be treated like Uber was. This is not a bad strategy for a company in our asymmetric regulatory environment. Fortunes were made in crypto on exactly this one-way bet. Go on breaking the law until you get a favorable judge/Congress. Nobody is going to jail (we don't really do that anymore), you might pay a fine. Every once in a while you'll have change the app a little to sort of comply with…

> Go on breaking the law until you get a favorable judge/Congress. Nobody is going to jail (we don't really do that anymore), you might pay a fine. Binance, FTX, BitMex, Silk Road founders all went to jail - it’s a huge coin flip.

Kalshi hired Donald Trump Jr as a strategic advisor with a salary reported to be around $300,000 per year. Recently there was a meeting between him and various State Attorneys General, where the message was back off prediction markets. Not too long after that other areas of the Trump Admin sent a letter basically saying the same thing.

And so the circuit courts coming to very different conclusions from the 9th circuit represents the inherent political corruption involved in the court system.

Circuit splits get resolved at the Supreme Court and I would make a prediction that it isnt a coin flip, probably more of a safe bet.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#159

Post by tsimionescu »

inigyou wrote: post #145
tsimionescu wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not true, as "dangerous" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. Just because Tylenol (acetaminophen) is highly toxic in actually quite small doses doesn't make it as dangerous as vicodin or morphine or heroin or meth or fentanyl. A drug is dangerous when it is toxic at an easily obtainable dose AND there is a clear incentive for people to consume it in that dose, such as addiction and tolerance. While ace…

This sounds like a rationalisation to me. People take Tylenol for pain. If they're still in pain, they take more of it. Tylenol doesn't mitigate all types of pain so people might think they need more. This happens, and then they die. It happens surprisingly infrequently considering how abnormally dangerous the drug is, but it still happens.

Tylenol only works for relatively low levels of pain, which tends to be relatively short term. So abuse is not very common, and even with chronic pain, Tylenol overdosing kills quite quickly, it doesn't have time to become a habit that takes down entire families together with the chronic pain sufferer.

Either way, we don't have to assume, we can directly check the numbers. Per another commenter, Tylenol kills about 458 people in the USA every year. In contrast, death from overdose on illegal stimulants was estimated at ~33.000 people in the USA.

Now, is it fair to say that Tylenol is more dangerous than marijuana? Of course. But to say it's more dangerous than most illegal drugs? Obviously not.

Re: 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

#160

Post by inigyou »

tsimionescu wrote: post #159
inigyou wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a rationalisation to me. People take Tylenol for pain. If they're still in pain, they take more of it. Tylenol doesn't mitigate all types of pain so people might think they need more. This happens, and then they die. It happens surprisingly infrequently considering how abnormally dangerous the drug is, but it still happens.

Tylenol only works for relatively low levels of pain, which tends to be relatively short term. So abuse is not very common, and even with chronic pain, Tylenol overdosing kills quite quickly, it doesn't have time to become a habit that takes down entire families together with the chronic pain sufferer. Either way, we don't have to assume, we can directly check the numbers. Per another commenter, Tylenol kills about 4…

I wonder what the death rate on those other stimulants would be if they were issued the same way, in regulated pharmacy stores.

I know that a lot of illegal drug overdoses are caused by people who thought they were taking a normal dose but got the wrong substance, wrong amount or wrong concentration from their dealer - who in many cases also didn't know about the discrepancy because of unreliable supply chains and difficulty of testing, both caused by illegality.

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