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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

#21

Post by pennomi »

EA-3167 wrote: post #6
mullingitover wrote: post #5

> “Congress did not take a wrecking ball to all sports gambling regulations built up over decades by federal, state, and tribal governments when it amended the (Commodity Exchange Act),” Judge Ryan Nelson wrote in the unanimous decision. Incredible that it's taken this long to arrive at the obvious.

The law is slow by design, it's deliberative, it's multi-staged, it's escalatory and obsessed with consulting multiple jurists. That can be extremely frustrating until you start looking into how the country would look if individual judges were able to fast-track the whole system. Naturally we'd celebrate the positive outcomes, but the bad ruling would immediately go into effect rather than facing injunction, review,…

The law being slow is exactly why a guy like Trump in power is dealing so much damage. Nearly everything he’s done has been illegal, but the decisions often take so long that they have no effect.

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

#22

Post by xoa »

consensus1 wrote: post #15
karlgkk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, at least treat it like a public health issue. Used to be that if you wanted to gamble, you had to physically to a dedicated gambling zone.

Which we called the "stock market"

No, the stock market is not gambling (or at least hasn't been, need not, and should not be). The stock market is a positive sum game, linked to the growth of the economy as a whole. Humanity is very, very far from the maximum possible utilization (and maximum efficiency) of matter and energy in this solar system or even this world. What decisions we make matters a lot in how well/how fast/whether we continue to get richer, so we've tried however ineptly and haltingly to make systems that reward short and long term gains balanced against current use priorities. And have failed plenty, and may yet fail completely. But it's perfectly possible for everyone to win, for the whole world to get "richer" (defined as being better able to meet human goals & desires within a given mass/energy budget or have more or both). Investments can yield >1x total returns. And that has indeed been the case, that's the story of modern civilization.

Gambling in contrast is strictly zero sum at best and always negative sum in reality. A group of people puts in 1x capital, the house takes a cut of that, and then the It appears to be the case that we can't perfectly stop 100% of all IRL gambling without a cost that exceeds the benefit. That's life. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be picking as much low hanging fruit as possible, same as with other negative sum brain hacks.

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

#23

Post by 8note »

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

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

#24

Post by consensus1 »

xoa wrote: post #22
consensus1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which we called the "stock market"

No, the stock market is not gambling (or at least hasn't been, need not, and should not be). The stock market is a positive sum game, linked to the growth of the economy as a whole. Humanity is very, very far from the maximum possible utilization (and maximum efficiency) of matter and energy in this solar system or even this world. What decisions we make matters a lot in how well/how fast/whether we continue to get r…

I was joking (mostly). The stock market absolutely is positive sum, but at the same time things like 2x levered short VIX ETF's exist...

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

#25

Post by jmalicki »

delichon wrote: post #16
mandevil wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone agreed that this (what the court ruled) was the plain meaning of the law up until Kalshi just decided to go for it. They basically did an Uber on the law, completely ignoring how it had long been interpreted and demanding someone stop them. And only once Kalshi wanted to make money on sports gambling did there start to be parsing like this, to try to argue that sports gambling was legal on a CFTC-regulated e…

Declaring the law void for vagueness would not favor Kalshi. It would undercut the federal preemption that Kalshi is advocating for.

Since when has vagueness been considered a bad thing for statutes? It's the foundation of the US (and anglo) legal system and why courts exist, to fill in. And vague statutes that can be interpreted by courts has long been preferred to precise legislated meaning that you seem to prefer.

You could live in Germany or France if you prefer a legal system more ruled by clear statute?

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

#27

Post by delichon »

jmalicki wrote: post #25
delichon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Declaring the law void for vagueness would not favor Kalshi. It would undercut the federal preemption that Kalshi is advocating for.

Since when has vagueness been considered a bad thing for statutes? It's the foundation of the US (and anglo) legal system and why courts exist, to fill in. And vague statutes that can be interpreted by courts has long been preferred to precise legislated meaning that you seem to prefer. You could live in Germany or France if you prefer a legal system more ruled by clear statute?

If vagueness isn't a problem then we can simplify the law by replacing it all with one sentence: Let there be justice.

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

#28

Post by xoa »

consensus1 wrote: post #24
xoa wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the stock market is not gambling (or at least hasn't been, need not, and should not be). The stock market is a positive sum game, linked to the growth of the economy as a whole. Humanity is very, very far from the maximum possible utilization (and maximum efficiency) of matter and energy in this solar system or even this world. What decisions we make matters a lot in how well/how fast/whether we continue to get r…

I was joking (mostly). The stock market absolutely is positive sum, but at the same time things like 2x levered short VIX ETF's exist...

I mean sure, people can find ways to use all sorts of events and activities for gambling, but that doesn't mean the events/activities themselves are. And the sentiment you expressed joking has gotten repeated with (afaict) total seriousness in these threads with some regularity (insurance is another one that people incorrectly bring up trying to defend gambling). So I think it's pretty important to differentiate between everything, and to help pass on some of the history as humans have grappled with this in the past. Insurance for example has the concept of requiring an "insurable interest" to help avoid negative incentives and gambling. You can insure your own house against burning down, but you can't take out a policy against some random stranger's house.

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

#29

Post by ryandrake »

combobyte wrote: post #17
jareklupinski wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies need to pay 40-50% of their gross revenue to the government. That's comparable to tobacco. taxing a vice is worth it on paper, but the second-order effects (nonstop alcohol ads, pervasive gambling app dark patterns) aren't worth it imo

When was the last time you saw an ad for cigarettes? Those second-order effects are easy to mitigate with sensible public policy. And it's not like we have to invent the solution from scratch — we've done it before, very effectively.

This is the correct reply to the constant "but whatabout" replies, that inevitably come up whenever you suggest regulation. "You've regulated bad thing X, but then they'll do Y!" So regulate Y! It's not like legislators only get one crack at a law. We should elect a government willing to move fast and iterate when loopholes are uncovered.

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

#30

Post by ryandrake »

xoa wrote: post #22
consensus1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which we called the "stock market"

No, the stock market is not gambling (or at least hasn't been, need not, and should not be). The stock market is a positive sum game, linked to the growth of the economy as a whole. Humanity is very, very far from the maximum possible utilization (and maximum efficiency) of matter and energy in this solar system or even this world. What decisions we make matters a lot in how well/how fast/whether we continue to get r…

By a strict definition of gambling, the stock market is gambling: It's a monetary wager placed on an unknown future event. Just because it (often) is positive sum doesn't mean it isn't an unknown that people are betting money on.
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