Earlier quoted context omitted.
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So I take it you have a problem with laws against murder, fraud, theft, etc. Aside from the government, who is it that you prefer to do judgment and enforcement?
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Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
121–130 of 559 posts
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#122These - 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.
The genie is out of the bottle. Crypto-only underground prediction markets will always exist. I think it is better to heavily regulate legal options instead of pushing them underground. That didnt work for drugs or prostitution, and it wont work for gambling.
Except it generally worked for gambling for a very very long time. The existence of a black market does not mean something should be legal. Human trafficking happens, but that doesn't mean we should legalize and tax it. (extreme example I realize, but I use it to illustrate a point)
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
The technical term is that you must have an “insurable interest” in what you insure. Both of your examples are people protecting their insurable interest. Ownership is the most common insurable interest, but there are many other ways to have one. This is done because the insurance company wants you to prefer that the covered event doesn’t happen, which avoids some conflicts of interest. These prediction market events…
Unless you short the property. Essentially, sell it now on the bet that it will drop in value later. Then it burns down and you repurchase the vacant lot and return the property to the original owner. Evil, but most everything in real estate is evil.
And that's exactly the problem with Polymarket and such, it gives an incentive to be destructive because that's easy. Entropy is easy.
With an insurance this trick won't work, because the insurance company will notice what you are doing. Polymarket doesn't care.
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
A thought experiment: how would you feel about betting on a market that is an the outcome of a medical procedure? On a negative outcome? On a market for a negative outcome of your own procedure?
Is it bad to take out a life insurance policy right before you have a medical procedure?
Not if it's your own procedure.
If it is someone else's? Bad, because I'll just take a life insurance on them and then promise the doctor half of the proceeds if they ensure that the outcome of the procedure leads to an insurance payout.
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#125[flagged]
Should there be taxes on alcohol and cigarettes? Should there be warnings on them? What about on heroin?
As someone that works large events on weekends, holy fuck alcohol should not be legal. Nearly every single problem we get is because of alcohol. Someone on heroin or weed or e is almost certainly less problematic.
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
The genie is out of the bottle. Crypto-only underground prediction markets will always exist. I think it is better to heavily regulate legal options instead of pushing them underground. That didnt work for drugs or prostitution, and it wont work for gambling.
Except it generally worked for gambling for a very very long time. The existence of a black market does not mean something should be legal. Human trafficking happens, but that doesn't mean we should legalize and tax it. (extreme example I realize, but I use it to illustrate a point)
Pushing it to black markets takes away the possibility of heavy regulation (which absolutely should be in place), and stigmatises victims (gamblers), making it harder to come clean to friends and family. I agree with your assesment that no one should even start to gamble, I just doubt that declaring it illegal will achieve that.
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you further explain the semantics you are talking about here? Are people not trying to predict things? Thus it being a market for people making predictions?
polymarket is selling bets, not predictions and other people are buying them. they are not being sold by people. It's like calling the casino a probability market.
I think the term "market" comes from the fact that it uses stock market–like pricing and allows you to sell your bets at any time. Ie. you buy "shares" of some outcome for 0.3$ if the probability is 30%, and then if the probability at any point goes to 50%, you can sell the "shares" for 0.5$ each.
(Which of course doesn't make it any better or less of a casino, this is just to say that the word market didn't come from nowhere)
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
You need a license to operate in Spain. The license is fairly available (EU regulations enforce this). So, Polymarket is able to obtain a license if they wish to operate in Spain, if they follow the fair rules to obtain a license. Don't want to obtain a license? Don't want to follow the rules in Spain? No problem, but no business in Spain. Websites blocking works like that, too. Which makes sense: local law > remote…
> I'd love to compare my visit to a Fry's in San Jose 2005 with today's. Fry's closed in 2021.
There you have it.
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#129These - 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.
I think they are illegal already in most places under the insurable interest doctrine.
Its a small step from betting on ships sinking to making sure they go down.
Re: Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence
#130Are they still doing blocks so configuring either Google's DNS or Cloudflare DNS will still unblock the sites?
Seems the blocks aren't in effect yet, I'm on Spanish ISP (Vodafone) here and can still access polymarket.com and kalshi.com. Traditionally, Spanish ISPs tend to do DNS blocks yeah, at least when it comes to long-lasting piracy and other "clearly illegal stuff" like Women's rights. It not until recently ISPs got asked to do blocks by IP, as Cloudflare wasn't responding to legal takedown requests, hence we currently s…
I'm on Movistar and can't access it without my trusty VPN that I have for football match times :)