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Comment by mrtksn | Hacker News Reader

Are prediction markets regulated? Is this about breaking the laws regarding prediction markets or is this about leaking classified information? I skimmed but not sure still.

Someone more cynical can say that this is about protecting Thiel’s investment(if people think it’s rigged may stop playing) or making sure that only big G makes money with classified information.

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From the article:

unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.

So what law is broken exactly? Will an engineer with classified information on F-35 use that for fixing his car be also prosecuted? I guess no, so is this about leaking the Maduro operation?

Insider trading and outcome manipulation seems to be the norm on unregulated markets anyway. Whats the crime?

By the letter of the law the guy fixing his car should be prosecuted, but like nobody is going to know and it’s not going to happen. In this case it’s pretty obvious the law was broken.

People have been prosecuted several times for using classified information to win WarThunder forum arguments.

These two videos might be of some help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A654vzQTGbQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4njIQcSR4

Kalshi is regulated and trading in this way on Kalshi is explicitly illegal. PolyMarket does not operate under US laws and I don't know if the same insider trading rules are a separate violation on top of just participating.

Why would Polymarket not operate under US laws? It's based in New York, and has already been fined by the CFTC. It's all in the wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymarket

I don't know the exact legality of it all, but Polymarket wasn't operating in the US up until recently. Even though they are now, they maintain two separate markets. One that is somewhat regulated in the USA and a blockchain based market outside the US. For most of its existence it has very much been offering things that were illegal in the US even though they are based in NY.

All fungible markets are prediction markets. The idea that only some are is a mirage.

Sure, but in some you’re explicitly predicting the time someone gets black bagged, or an invasion happens - or you’re predicting next months oil price, which may be a defacto proxy, but has less moral hazard if you’re a random special ops guy.

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