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Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

theguardian.com

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Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#71

Post by NeutralCrane »

egorfine wrote: post #6
jackp96 wrote: post #2

Neither conservative nor Mormon, but online gambling is an addictive scourge that ruins lives, and I'd love to see it banned broadly. And go ahead and ban paid loot boxes as well. I don't love casinos or lotteries, but at least there's the friction of having to travel to a physical location to feed your addiction. And then there's the whole "insider trading" and "gambling on war" angles that come into play with predi…

As much as I hate what gambling does on the society, I'm still not sure if banning this activity counts as freedom. I believe that grown consenting adults do have a free will and should have the ability to destroy their lives if they so choose. OTOH allowing those kind of activities WILL end up with people opting in for the greater evil and thus some kind of limits should be enforced by governments. I have no idea wh…

I think an on over-fixation on “freedom” is what leads to many of the societal ills we (uniquely) deal with in America.

Freedom itself is itself a nebulous concept. Are my freedoms restricted when I can’t drive 80mph through my neighborhood? Yes. On the flip side I enjoy the “freedom” of living in a more controlled, safer environment. Is a corporation’s freedoms restricted by the laws that prevent them from dumping toxic sludge into the river upstream from me? Yes, but my freedom from living downstream of that pollution is preserved. Are my freedoms preserved when we allow broad access to firearms in this country? Yes, at the cost of my kids freedoms to attend a public school without the risk of being shot by a mentally ill psychopath.

Here we are considering the freedom to destroy your life via gambling vs the freedom from being targeted by corporations with much greater resources than you trying to get you to do so, and the freedoms of your family who may choose to not gamble and still have their lives destroyed as a result.

An “pure” worldview of maximizing personal freedoms over-simplifies the trade-offs and is doomed to fail in the real-world as a result. Realistically maximizing societal well-being requires a more moderate approach.

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#72

Post by sometimelurker »

I think the biggest problem with prediction markets can be solved with some law that would remove anonymity from those who trade, from the perspective of some regulating body* . now I know what I just said and I'm sure to be downvoted to hell for suggesting such a thing, but this would make it much easier to fight insider trading, assassination markets/equivalents, ect

You could just force the biggest entities in this space to comply and people wouldn't care enough about secretly betting on wars so it would all work out.

* if you make it so that everyone sees what their neighbor betted on then overall predictions will become less accurate due to social signaling

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#73

Post by gottorf »

dpark wrote: post #60
SoftTalker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some kind of limits should be enforced by governments I'm not sure why we think this works. Gambling is considered bad, and banned in many states, but many of those states run a lottery. This is just a straight up theft from the poor who are least well equipped to understand they are playing a rigged game, and not rigged in their favor.

> the poor who are least well equipped to understand Is there some actual evidence that poor people are under the impression that they have a meaningful chance of winning significant money the lottery? I see this line a lot and it’s extremely patronizing. I’m not even pro lottery but this “poor people are too dumb to understand” does not strike me as a sound argument.

It's more that poor people have worse impulse control and higher time preference[0], which contribute to the behavioral outcome of spending money on lottery tickets despite the EV being negative.

[0]: If we're splitting hairs, we should specify that having poor impulse control and higher time preference are the base causational factors that make it more likely for someone to be poor, buy lottery tickets, engage in criminality, etc. etc.

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#74

Post by boredhedgehog »

carabiner wrote: post #3

As I get older I'm starting to realize, the Christians were right about everything.

We should distinguish between the moral condemnation of a behavior and the desire to outlaw it. The latter is hardly Christian in any universal sense and seems to be mostly an effect of Protestant puritanism. For example, many saints have argued to tolerate prostitution and other vices for the sake of man's weakness.

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#75

Post by NeutralCrane »

jcfrei wrote: post #25

I'm surprised prediction markets don't get more support here on HN. There's a lot of benefit in having a probability estimate for various kinds of events. One example of many: https://polymarket.com/event/may-2026-temperature-increase-c These markets are a straightforward way to cut through all the noise of the current media conglomerates. Rather than getting bombarded by inflated headlines a glance at polymarket or…

You need a prediction market to know if the Second Coming of Christ is imminent?

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#76

Post by [deleted] »

mcmcmc wrote: post #8
jackp96 wrote: post #2

Neither conservative nor Mormon, but online gambling is an addictive scourge that ruins lives, and I'd love to see it banned broadly. And go ahead and ban paid loot boxes as well. I don't love casinos or lotteries, but at least there's the friction of having to travel to a physical location to feed your addiction. And then there's the whole "insider trading" and "gambling on war" angles that come into play with predi…

One distinction I think really needs to be included in any gambling bans is whether it’s a game of chance or skill. Betting on yourself is quintessentially American. I’d argue betting on someone else’s game of skill (eg sports betting) is a game of chance. Would be interesting to see how a new prohibition amendment on gambling on games of chance would work.

[deleted]

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#77

Post by criddell »

mcmcmc wrote: post #8
jackp96 wrote: post #2

Neither conservative nor Mormon, but online gambling is an addictive scourge that ruins lives, and I'd love to see it banned broadly. And go ahead and ban paid loot boxes as well. I don't love casinos or lotteries, but at least there's the friction of having to travel to a physical location to feed your addiction. And then there's the whole "insider trading" and "gambling on war" angles that come into play with predi…

One distinction I think really needs to be included in any gambling bans is whether it’s a game of chance or skill. Betting on yourself is quintessentially American. I’d argue betting on someone else’s game of skill (eg sports betting) is a game of chance. Would be interesting to see how a new prohibition amendment on gambling on games of chance would work.

> game of chance or skill

The line isn't all the clear, is it? Is poker skill or chance? What about betting on a horse? Or buying a stock option?

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#78

Post by dpark »

gottorf wrote: post #73
dpark wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the poor who are least well equipped to understand Is there some actual evidence that poor people are under the impression that they have a meaningful chance of winning significant money the lottery? I see this line a lot and it’s extremely patronizing. I’m not even pro lottery but this “poor people are too dumb to understand” does not strike me as a sound argument.

It's more that poor people have worse impulse control and higher time preference[0], which contribute to the behavioral outcome of spending money on lottery tickets despite the EV being negative. [0]: If we're splitting hairs, we should specify that having poor impulse control and higher time preference are the base causational factors that make it more likely for someone to be poor, buy lottery tickets, engage in cr…

Sorry, is there evidence for this?

I don’t have any trouble believing that there is some slice of poor people that this is true about. But I kind of doubt that holds in general.

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#79

Post by dfxm12 »

dpark wrote: post #60
SoftTalker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some kind of limits should be enforced by governments I'm not sure why we think this works. Gambling is considered bad, and banned in many states, but many of those states run a lottery. This is just a straight up theft from the poor who are least well equipped to understand they are playing a rigged game, and not rigged in their favor.

> the poor who are least well equipped to understand Is there some actual evidence that poor people are under the impression that they have a meaningful chance of winning significant money the lottery? I see this line a lot and it’s extremely patronizing. I’m not even pro lottery but this “poor people are too dumb to understand” does not strike me as a sound argument.

This article looks at lotto sales. I understand it doesn't address the assertions brought up about why people buy tickets, but maybe it still interesting in the context of this conversation.

https://archive.is/kY7U6

Re: Utah lawmakers form united front in push to ban prediction markets

#80

Post by dpark »

SoftTalker wrote: post #68
dpark wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the poor who are least well equipped to understand Is there some actual evidence that poor people are under the impression that they have a meaningful chance of winning significant money the lottery? I see this line a lot and it’s extremely patronizing. I’m not even pro lottery but this “poor people are too dumb to understand” does not strike me as a sound argument.

Not too dumb, but badly educated about money (part of why they stay poor) and probabilities.

Poor people stay poor because it’s really hard to climb out of poverty. It’s a function of opportunity, culture, society, and a lot more stuff. Education is a factor but I am doubtful it’s the primary one, and even where it is a major factor, it’s probably more general education than specifically about money.

I feel like the “poor people don’t understand money” line of thought comes from the same people who insist that avocado toast and lattes are why millennials can’t afford housing.

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