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Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

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Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#101

Post by usefulcat »

ryandrake wrote: post #90
hackingonempty wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The President's pardon power is enumerated in the Constitution and has been litigated extensively. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3...

Which ultimately doesn't matter. If the president tries to do something, and no court actually stops him, then it doesn't matter whether or not it's in the Constitution, whether or not it's written down in law, or whether or not it has been litigated in the past. He tried to do it, nobody stopped him, therefore he can do it. We are finding out in real time that the president can actually do a lot of things, simply be…

If you want to prosecute someone who has previously been pardoned, then you'll have to figure out how to get the courts (that is, the people who would be doing the actual prosecuting) to ignore some of the highest rules by which they operate.

I'm not saying that that could never happen, but a) it sure sounds like an uphill battle and b) it's not the same thing as the president (one person) doing whatever they feel like regardless of the law.

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#103

Post by JumpCrisscross »

usrusr wrote: post #99

In stock markets, insider trading is a big no not because it ruins someone's gambling habit, but because the entire concept of the corporation requires a certain amount of trust of financiers in financees. That whole pooling of capital thing, to do stuff that has too high a capital requirement to start individually. When shares are publicly traded, that trust is impossible when holders have to assume that they will b…

> Prediction markets don't have any "natural" reason like that for excluding insider trading

Corporate employees abusing trust are doing it equivalently whether they trade securities or place bets. Government employees, similarly, don’t personally own the country’s data.

In a minority of cases, the information is one’s own, e.g. bets on how many times a person says a word. But most of the time, there is a breach of trust.

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#104

Post by iamnothere »

ryandrake wrote: post #90
hackingonempty wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The President's pardon power is enumerated in the Constitution and has been litigated extensively. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3...

Which ultimately doesn't matter. If the president tries to do something, and no court actually stops him, then it doesn't matter whether or not it's in the Constitution, whether or not it's written down in law, or whether or not it has been litigated in the past. He tried to do it, nobody stopped him, therefore he can do it. We are finding out in real time that the president can actually do a lot of things, simply be…

I don’t think these blanket pardons are a good thing at all, but an amendment is needed to fix it.

We have somehow made it a habit to ignore the inconvenient parts of the constitution when they create problems, rather than going through the enumerated process to amend them. Yes, it’s hard to amend the constitution, but that’s the point!

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#105

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hackingonempty wrote: post #70
idle_zealot wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonable opposition party would declare the pardons invalid. Is that a valid interpretation of pardon power, does that undermine the legitimacy of our laws? Maybe, but not nearly as much as not punishing obvious and proud criminals does. That's the point of the rule of law, remember? It creates legitimacy, and therefore stability.

> A reasonable opposition party would declare the pardons invalid. Is that a valid interpretation of pardon power, does that undermine the legitimacy of our laws? No, in the USA the pardon power belongs to the President. Only a constitutional amendment could invalidate pardons.

There would still be a valuable public record produced by the investigation and court proceedings. Going after pardoned criminals is absolutely something the next administration should do. (We have zero precedent for preëmptive and blanket pardons in our courts, for example.)

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#106

Post by lotsofpulp »

throwaway173738 wrote: post #83
michaelt wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people with more information profit at the expense of people with less information, isn't that exactly how things are supposed to work? If you're approaching a market with hard facts, detailed comparisons and solid evidence; while I'm trading in the same market based on vibes and intuition, surely it's expected that your returns would be better, and mine worse?

If you’re betting with a friend that they won’t have chicken for dinner, what’s to stop them from having chicken for dinner? What if you bet with a complete stranger who also took the reverse of that bet from your friend?

Nothing, that is why you quickly learn to not make stupid bets like that. If you don’t learn, then I guess survival of the fittest and all that.

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#107

Post by foltik »

mbesto wrote: post #93
notahacker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a spokesperson or decision maker for an entity which is bet on, like a sports team or the government. You publicly indicate that you are going to do one thing (probably the thing that makes most sense), so the market bakes that into their assumptions and offers favourable odds for bets on doing the other thing. Then you place your bet shortly before you do the other thing. (it's true that low level insiders m…

This gets into game theory and doesn't follow a predetermined flow like you're suggesting. It's a bit like playing poker...does the guy who just went all in have pocket Aces or not?

It’s not really a game when one player gets to decide the outcome. In poker, the guy who went all in can’t peek at your cards and swap out his hand at the last second.

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#108

Post by bb88 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #103
usrusr wrote: post #99

In stock markets, insider trading is a big no not because it ruins someone's gambling habit, but because the entire concept of the corporation requires a certain amount of trust of financiers in financees. That whole pooling of capital thing, to do stuff that has too high a capital requirement to start individually. When shares are publicly traded, that trust is impossible when holders have to assume that they will b…

> Prediction markets don't have any "natural" reason like that for excluding insider trading Corporate employees abusing trust are doing it equivalently whether they trade securities or place bets. Government employees, similarly, don’t personally own the country’s data. In a minority of cases, the information is one’s own, e.g. bets on how many times a person says a word. But most of the time, there is a breach of t…

It's not just data, right? Power can be abused as well. That person has power to control the narrative and can make a large bet on the number of times he can say the word.

So now it's public servants military power, congressional power, and they look to enrich themselves with making (or lobbying for) decisions which affect the outcome of a bet.

You could imagine an army general that lobbies for the bombing of Iran knowing the president has his ear, and then bets on the bombing of Iran by March 2026.

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#109

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tptacek wrote: post #36

This issue reveals the gap between the prediction market premise and what these things actually are, which is: unregulated prop gambling venues. If things like Kalshi and Polymarket are prediction markets, then, at least as far as the intrinsic concerns of the market itself are concerned, insider trading is a good thing; literally part of the point. If they are instead how they function today, then insider trading is…

> If things like Kalshi and Polymarket are prediction markets, then, at least as far as the intrinsic concerns of the market itself are concerned, insider trading is a good thing; literally part of the point.

That depends on what the effects are.

Suppose that predicting things well requires both information and analysis. Early access to information is therefore a competitive advantage: Even if you're not as good at analysis, having the information before anyone else and then getting the analysis right 65% of the time is more often than not going to let you beat the people who get the analysis right 85% of the time once they have the information. Which is to say, it will make it less profitable for the people who are better at analysis to participate in the market, and then fewer of them will.

So the question is, what do you want? An answer which is right 65% of the time slightly sooner, or an answer which is right 85% of the time slightly later? It's valid to want the second one.

Re: Kalshi CEO expects US DOJ to prosecute insider trading cases

#110

Post by [deleted] »

hackingonempty wrote: post #70
idle_zealot wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reasonable opposition party would declare the pardons invalid. Is that a valid interpretation of pardon power, does that undermine the legitimacy of our laws? Maybe, but not nearly as much as not punishing obvious and proud criminals does. That's the point of the rule of law, remember? It creates legitimacy, and therefore stability.

> A reasonable opposition party would declare the pardons invalid. Is that a valid interpretation of pardon power, does that undermine the legitimacy of our laws? No, in the USA the pardon power belongs to the President. Only a constitutional amendment could invalidate pardons.

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