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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

What is the legality for US residents?

Right now Polymarket is subject to a federal agreement that they don't let US people participate. Apparently this is just a checkbox for the user to attest to. They don't even do IP geolocation, never mind payment checks.

So it's currently illegal for them to run this in the US. But is it illegal for users to participate?

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It's okay, when the next administration enforces the laws we'll see all the VC ghouls attack and decry the government for having the audacity to protect citizens from abuse.

Polymarket has been around for a while. I thought the agreement happened under the Biden admin, but I could be wrong.

Prediction markets are highly regulated, it's just not being enforced... This is just a way to launder money to those with insider info to profit from. Also who the fuck cares if it happened under Biden? Is that some sort of gotcha you conjured up? Democratic members hate the democratic party more than Trump, no one cares about Biden or what he did but they sure do care what he failed to do.

"Also who the fuck cares if it happened under Biden?"

Your comment said the next administration will enforce it. It seems that administrations from either party have not.

Despite looking like a gambling website, the underlying system is a cryptocurrency exchange. With a separate cryptocurrency used as an oracle to decide (yes/no/later) if the yes or no side won. The site itself if pretty hands off with the actual financials. (though, they once did refund people when the oracle system resolved incorrectly)

I don't think this convoluted setup is enough to avoid US gambling laws, but it is important to keep in mind how it actually works.

> Right now Polymarket is subject to a federal agreement that they don't let US people participate.

This changed last month.

What changed?

They bought a CFTC regulated exchange

Yeah, but they're still enforcing the location stuff. I don't think they've fully switched over to regulated contracts.

I have the Polymarket app installed because it's a React Native app and I installed a bunch of the top apps using RN as research. About a week ago I got a notification that "Polymarket is now legal in the US!". I'm not from the US so not sure why I got the notification. Anyways, seems like something has changed.

They do check geolocation on order submit. You can read the site from anywhere, though.

Ah, I did not get that far in the enrollment process. Thanks!

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