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Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

merkley.senate.gov

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Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#51

Post by gosub100 »

aurareturn wrote: post #3

It makes sense to ban government officials from betting. It's hard enough to enforce insider trading. With legal betting, it's literally impossible. Another worrying issue with betting is just how prevalent the last election was in betting markets. In elections won by thousands or even just hundreds of votes, betting markets can skew results where betters vote for someone just purely for the bet and persuade, shill f…

Or campaigns could hedge their risk by buying the other guy. They either win the election or get all their expenses refunded.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#53

Post by stopbulying »

aurareturn wrote: post #3

It makes sense to ban government officials from betting. It's hard enough to enforce insider trading. With legal betting, it's literally impossible. Another worrying issue with betting is just how prevalent the last election was in betting markets. In elections won by thousands or even just hundreds of votes, betting markets can skew results where betters vote for someone just purely for the bet and persuade, shill f…

> With legal betting, it's literally impossible.

Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiate_... :

> State of New Jersey, represented by Governor [Chris Christie], sought to have the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) overturned to allow state-sponsored sports betting.

How does Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association affect or affirm states' rights on cannabis regulation and legalization?

Wasn't Christie against Medicalization and Legalization?

IMO it's less fun to see scared gamblers at sporting events.

A quote from the film "Two for the Money":

"See, most gamblers, when they go to gamble, they go to win. When we go to gamble, we go to lose."

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#54

Post by guidedlight »

int32_64 wrote: post #33

The prediction market trend will "work itself out". It will become common knowledge that these platforms are exploited by insiders so people "trust" apparent flagged insider bets, so people will try to piggyback insiders, then it will be revealed that a sophisticated party with infinitely deep pockets burns massive amounts of cash to manipulate odds and these piggybackers will be burned badly, so in the end classical…

I agree. The market is flawed because there isn’t a guaranteed entropy.

Because of this, the prediction market will remain niche.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#55

Post by stopbulying »

gosub100 wrote: post #51
aurareturn wrote: post #3

It makes sense to ban government officials from betting. It's hard enough to enforce insider trading. With legal betting, it's literally impossible. Another worrying issue with betting is just how prevalent the last election was in betting markets. In elections won by thousands or even just hundreds of votes, betting markets can skew results where betters vote for someone just purely for the bet and persuade, shill f…

Or campaigns could hedge their risk by buying the other guy. They either win the election or get all their expenses refunded.

That's like "South Park" S01E10 (1998);

Damien (South Park) - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_(South_Park) :

> The majority of South Park's residents bet on Satan to win the match due to his enormous size and muscular physique, but Satan ultimately throws the fight and reveals he bet on Jesus, thus winning everybody's money.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#56

Post by toss1 »

lukev wrote: post #11
staplung wrote: post #5

Unfortunately, it's not just elected officials that are problematic for prediction markets. The Secretary of War, for instance is not an elected official nor are leaders of the armed forces and there is definitely a prediction market for war. Multiply this by every powerful appointee and every career bureaucrat and see what kind of picture that paints.

If we're not going to ban prediction markets, we could at least make it a requirement that all bets are public and associated with a real identity. That'd go a long way towards curbing the corruption of these things, while preserving (or even greatly enhancing) their "predictive power."

THIS — make it transparent, not try to ban it.

And the transparency must be real-time and MUST include the full dox on beneficial owner of the contract/bet, with steep jailtime for falsification/fronting, etc.. They can even say it is for tax purposes — they win that bet, they should pay income tax (and be able to deduct the costs of their losing bets against that specific income type).

I want to know if a bunch of senators or DOD personnel bet on event X, and I want journalists and OSINT watchers to know it in realtime. That gives everyone information while naturally eliminating most of the advantage of insider trading, since nearly everyone will pile into the same trade and the odds/payoff will come closer to the reality.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#57

Post by stopbulying »

gosub100 wrote: post #51
aurareturn wrote: post #3

It makes sense to ban government officials from betting. It's hard enough to enforce insider trading. With legal betting, it's literally impossible. Another worrying issue with betting is just how prevalent the last election was in betting markets. In elections won by thousands or even just hundreds of votes, betting markets can skew results where betters vote for someone just purely for the bet and persuade, shill f…

Or campaigns could hedge their risk by buying the other guy. They either win the election or get all their expenses refunded.

> They either win the election or get all their expenses refunded.

How would that work with something like the WH Press Secretary who has refused to give back some $350K in campaign donations (though currently FEC can't prosecute any campaign finance violations because they don't have a quorum because Trump has not nominated and confirmed enough FEC commissioners.)

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#58

Post by CamperBob2 »

int32_64 wrote: post #33

The prediction market trend will "work itself out". It will become common knowledge that these platforms are exploited by insiders so people "trust" apparent flagged insider bets, so people will try to piggyback insiders, then it will be revealed that a sophisticated party with infinitely deep pockets burns massive amounts of cash to manipulate odds and these piggybackers will be burned badly, so in the end classical…

Even in the presence of insiders, these markets may still function well as hedges.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#59

Post by ralph84 »

staplung wrote: post #5

Unfortunately, it's not just elected officials that are problematic for prediction markets. The Secretary of War, for instance is not an elected official nor are leaders of the armed forces and there is definitely a prediction market for war. Multiply this by every powerful appointee and every career bureaucrat and see what kind of picture that paints.

If I was a NOAA meteorologist I'd be making bank insider trading temperature prediction markets.

Re: Effort to prevent government officials from engaging in prediction markets

#60

Post by stopbulying »

gosub100 wrote: post #51
aurareturn wrote: post #3

It makes sense to ban government officials from betting. It's hard enough to enforce insider trading. With legal betting, it's literally impossible. Another worrying issue with betting is just how prevalent the last election was in betting markets. In elections won by thousands or even just hundreds of votes, betting markets can skew results where betters vote for someone just purely for the bet and persuade, shill f…

Or campaigns could hedge their risk by buying the other guy. They either win the election or get all their expenses refunded.

"David Letterman Was DISGUSTED When Trump Showed His True Character" in re: to promoting professional boxing and boxers: https://youtube.com/watch?v=E9MB4CUraGc :

> As soon as he gets out, he's going to fight in my casinos

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