rHXN - 9th Circuit sides with states in Kalshi gambling fight

DannyBee - 7 hours ago

Lawyer here - As i explained last time we had a variant of this thread (see comment history if you are interested), this is a very complicated area that people try to make very simple.

It doesn't have to be complicated, mind you, but right now the way the law is written is basically:

1. Transmitting sports betting info between states is a federal crime unless it's legal in both states (18 U.S.C. § 1084(a))

2. The CEA regulations ban contracts that are illegal under state law (17 CFR 40.11)

3. Other forms of gambling/betting/contracts that are not sports are generally a-ok.

4. This is not a case of first impression, it's just getting relitigated because Kalshi doesn't want to follow the actual law. This has actually been pretty settled law for a long time, with new flareups maybe once a decade. Kalshi is just hoping to be treated like Uber was.

The third circuit's decision is pretty clearly "out there" in terms of existing caselaw.

However, this will end up at SCOTUS, and everything until then just doesn't matter. That will be a coin flip even though it shouldn't be

runako - 5 hours ago

> Kalshi is just hoping to be treated like Uber was.

This is not a bad strategy for a company in our asymmetric regulatory environment. Fortunes were made in crypto on exactly this one-way bet.

Go on breaking the law until you get a favorable judge/Congress. Nobody is going to jail (we don't really do that anymore), you might pay a fine. Every once in a while you'll have change the app a little to sort of comply with a judicial order. There's practically no downside to this strategy.

highfrequency - 4 hours ago

> Go on breaking the law until you get a favorable judge/Congress. Nobody is going to jail (we don't really do that anymore), you might pay a fine.

Binance, FTX, BitMex, Silk Road founders all went to jail - it’s a huge coin flip.

runako - 3 hours ago

> Binance, FTX, BitMex, Silk Road founders all went to jail

BitMex didn't go to jail, they all got probation/ankle tag, for not running a clean money org (allegedly no KYC, registering US accounts from offshore, etc.). CZ got caught in the US anti-China panic that also saw the TikTok ban pass Congress with nearly 80(!) votes in the Senate. Silk Road: drug trafficking.

FTX is the closest analog, but by all accounts they did not run a clean operation. What I have read of their operation would have been grounds for charging even if they were trading legal securities.

Seems the through line is if your main business is illegal, you need to run it as if it were going to be legalized tomorrow.

laserlight - 57 minutes ago

Sam Bankman Fried wasn't jailed for running FTX. He was jailed for conducting fraud. Silk Road wasn't a registered company at all. It was downright criminal.

aetch - 4 hours ago

Now they’re getting out of jail with a few donations

khriss - 3 hours ago

IIRC, the Binance founder simply paid Trump off and got a pardon, with Trump himself admitting afterwards that he 'didn't know who the guy was'. So, the assertion that there are no real consequences anymore for 0.1% continues to hold.

grim_io - 4 hours ago

It was a different time.

kingkawn - 4 hours ago

offering services illegally is one thing, defrauding investors in Ponzi schemes is different

vkou - 4 hours ago

What kind of society do you get when the positive EV play is to always break the law first, litigate later?

brendoelfrendo - 4 hours ago

If you're in the USA, you can see for yourself by looking out the window. It's not great!

ButlerianJihad - 3 hours ago

> That will be a coin flip

I call $50 on Tails!

echelon_musk - 2 hours ago

Seems like something there could be a prediction market for on Kalshi.

inigyou - 2 hours ago

I call $50 on Whonix

0xbadcafebee - 5 hours ago

> because Kalshi doesn't want to follow the actual law

Correction: because the federal government doesn't want Kalshi to follow the actual law. CFTC ordered Kalshi to continue operating in NY when NY tried to crack down on it. Donald Trump Jr. is a paid advisor for Kalshi. The US Government's conservative leaders are ignoring states' rights in order to personally profit, using Kalshi as a tool.

> this will end up at SCOTUS, and everything until then just doesn't matter

Unless Congress passes a law so SCOTUS doesn't have to. We can't keep pretending it's normal for SCOTUS to decide everything about our society. If Congress won't do its job, why do we have them?

jfengel - 5 hours ago

We have them because the Founders thought it was a good idea.

Then they thought it was a good idea to have two houses with different criteria, giving two chances to quash legislation. Plus the veto. Plus the Supreme Court (whose job they left almost completely undefined, so they made up a job description).

So we have them because we can't get rid of them. But they are practically useless. They can usually manage the bare minimum of reauthorizing the thing they said last year. Then they can rename a few post offices, have some grandstanding hearings, and then go home to campaign for reelection.

dmix - 4 hours ago

That’s the history of separation of powers, the judiciary is the final check in the loop. It doesn’t fully explain why Congress has allowed the expansion of executive power for nearly a century, resulting in more and more major issues being pushed to the Supreme Court.

That’s not to say states have lost power, their reach has also grown exponentially far outpacing even the federal in terms of number of workers and written law.

It’s mostly just Congress has become self satisfied on being negotiators for spending the most money in their own states, while ignoring the minimization of their role in the greater power dynamic.

Everyone makes a big deal about president as the signal but IMO if you take a 10,000-foot view of US history Congress neutering itself is the real long term narrative. Including most major current populist issues like immigration, debt, war, abortion, etc. They are hands off unless it involves new spending.

vkou - 4 hours ago

> It doesn’t fully explain why Congress has allowed the expansion of executive power for nearly a century, resulting in more and more major issues being pushed to the Supreme Court.

It's because the US is a presidential republic with no concept of a non-confidence vote. This makes the sitting head of the party ~impossible to remove, and when government fails to reach consensus, instead of... Having an election, and let the voters decide, power de-facto ends up in the hands of the executive.

reliabilityguy - 3 hours ago

I am not sure a vote of non-confidence would have helped here — there are only two parties.

skissane - 2 hours ago

> I am not sure a vote of non-confidence would have helped here — there are only two parties.

But why are there only two parties?

The rest of the Anglosphere–Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK–have multiparty systems–some are more multiparty than others, but none of them have the hard two-party system that the US has, in which third parties have a very marginal role (not completely marginal – e.g. in a close election, the decisions of New York's Conservative and Working Families parties can make a real difference to the outcome – but certainly at a national level third parties have no real power in the US.)

First-past-the-post is a popular explanation, but it can't by itself explain it, since the UK and Canada use it, yet lack a US-style hard two party system (and with the rise of the Reform party in the UK, the British system is becoming less two-party than it has been in a long time.)

0xbadcafebee - 1 hour ago

Even if first-past-the-post could change, it's not the whole ballgame. To get on a state ballot you need thousands of petition signatures, and those signatures can be invalidated on technicalities brought up by major parties' legal teams. To be covered by the media or be included in a debate you need to poll at a high percentage. You can't get public funding to campaign unless you already had a high percentage of the vote in a previous election. Nobody will donate to you because the third party just detracts from the other two that will give the big donors what they want. And gerrymandering ensures the same people keep getting elected. All those roadblocks are in place because the two major parties put them there to prevent 3rd party challengers. The whole thing is rigged.

Just to show up and get 1% of the vote, you would need a grassroots national movement to elect someone who was wildly popular, who could build a 50-state network of volunteers (including legal, political, financial, community organizing, etc), sponsored by someone with extremely deep pockets that doesn't want anything from established political figures. And you'd still lose.

We have representatives already. The problem is we never hold their feet to the fire. We keep voting for the same useless bastards, and we don't vote them out when they do nothing. Half the country doesn't vote. That's our own responsibility we're shirking. Rather than get a new party, we need to get off our collective asses, and use the existing power we have to force the parties to do their jobs.

fooey - 4 hours ago

the lesson congress learned from the Hillary Clinton coronation getting derailed by Obama was to absolutely never ever vote on anything important

reliabilityguy - 3 hours ago

Can you elaborate what you mean?

9dev - 1 hour ago

As Donald Trump and the Republicans have so aptly proven, all checks and balances depend on an elaborate system of conventions, manners and personal honor, and a general spirit of compliance. As soon as the electorate votes for a party and administration choosing to simply ignore all that, the system folds entirely.

That is also the core problem for reestablishing trust with the rest of the world: Even if a Democrat or just a sane Republican wins in 28 and tries to revert many of the destructive policies the current administration enacted, there is now solid evidence the much-hailed system of checks and balances doesn’t work as advertised. And that means there is not really a legitimate argument to trust the US as much as countries and businesses did, which calls a lot of things into question—the bond market, the petrodollar, investments in the USA, dependency on American services…

Alpha3031 - 4 hours ago

Well, one should also remember that they thought protecting the opulent minority was so important that an entire house ought to represent them. Secure the permeant interests of the country and all that.

Not that the other house isn't also tilted that way, but it seems to be that they, and the appointments approved by them, are functioning exactly as was intended (as shown by the supreme court suddenly caring about executive overreach when it came to money). Who knows whether they would care about the social issues affecting the poors nowadays, but they certainly didn't care to let the people be in charge without a veto from that opulent minority.

9dev - 1 hour ago

They also thought owning slaves was a good idea. Perhaps we shouldn’t let men dead for centuries dictate how to run the country anymore?

bjt - 2 hours ago

> We can't keep pretending it's normal for SCOTUS to decide everything about our society.

That's not what this is. As the 9th Circuit points out, states already have quite extensive laws about gambling. We don't need Congress to step in to either reinforce or displace them. The courts are doing their job by ruling on existing laws.

DannyBee - 4 hours ago

Thankfully, the CFTC can't actually order Kalshi to continue operating in NY despite being in violation of NY law. They have no authority to override any judge's order/etc, and at least so far, have not pretended they do.

As for me, i've never pretended it's either normal or desired for the courts to make policy, whether congress is dysfunctional or not. Among other things. My comment was basically pointing out that the current supreme court seems perfectly willing to throw out decades of settled law on an ideological whim, and actually, for that matter, happily interpret very clear congressional statutes in very odd ways.

So your comment there is mistargeted, at least as applied to me.

tmp10423288442 - 3 hours ago

> the current supreme court seems perfectly willing to throw out decades of settled law on an ideological whim, and actually, for that matter, happily interpret very clear congressional statutes in very odd ways

Fortunately or unfortunately, the Supreme Court has always been willing to do that. This court has been overruling decisions of the Warren Court, just as the Warren Court overruled decisions from the Lochner Era.

watwut - 1 hour ago

Overruling bad decisions is not a problem. Following is a problem:

> decades of settled law on an ideological whim, and actually, for that matter, happily interpret very clear congressional statutes in very odd ways

This court is not like the previos one. Things are not the same

fooey - 4 hours ago

absolutely nothing in going to happen in the US congress until 2029

we're essentially one year of three into one of the least effective lame duck legislative bodies we'll ever see

expel5631 - 3 hours ago

[dead]

mullingitover - 7 hours ago

> “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.

echelon - 7 hours ago

Gambling is a negative externality that needs to be taxed.

Gambling takes advantage of the poor, under-educated, and addictive personalities and puts them into financial distress. This places burden on families, the state, and local municipalities. It creates strain on the workforce and deflects legitimate economic activity that would otherwise strengthen the economy.

We're a free society. I'm fine with gambling from a personal liberty perspective, but the companies that facilitate and profit need to pay 40-50% of their gross revenue to the government. That's comparable to tobacco.

Companies also need to be restricted in how they are able to advertise their vices. Never to children, and never targeted to at-risk personality types.

They also need to be tightly regulated and kept from using dark patterns and addictive gotcha mechanics to cause even greater harm to those most at risk.

jareklupinski - 7 hours ago

> 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

combobyte - 7 hours ago

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.

khriss - 3 hours ago

> Those second-order effects are easy to mitigate with sensible public policy.

Regrettably, sensible public policy seems to be in remarkably short supply these days.

ryandrake - 6 hours ago

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.

inigyou - 2 hours ago

The thing is that US Congress can't make laws. It just can't. It's nonfunctional. When it does that's the rare exception, and it better be perfect the first time because you won't get so lucky twice.

gopher_space - 4 hours ago

I mean if you're arguing an edge case you've already accepted the central point, so it's not like a response needs to be made. We handle edge cases.

esseph - 4 hours ago

> When was the last time you saw an ad for cigarettes?

Today at the gas station on the outside of the pump and the store door.

dghlsakjg - 4 hours ago

I was at a gas station today that sells tobacco. No ads. Its because even displaying tobacco products, let alone advertising them, is not allowed in that jurisdiction.

I'll bet you didn't see any cartoon camels or doctors recomending a brand though, because even where tobacco ads are legal, many tobacco ads are no longer legal.

Whether you see ads, and what kind of ads you see is highly regulated. That's the whole point,

esseph - 3 hours ago

> I was at a gas station today that sells tobacco. No ads. Its because even displaying tobacco products, let alone advertising them, is not allowed.

We clearly don't live in the same states.

dghlsakjg - 3 hours ago

Sorry for the ninja edit about jurisdictions.

I live in a different country since we don't have states here.

tofuahdude - 4 hours ago

Aren't worth what? The tax? Or the vice being legal in the first place?

dakolli - 4 hours ago

You can't tax revenue in sports gambling markets, it actually just leads to predatory gambling products with massive vig/house edge. This was attempted in Tennessee. Margins are extermely low sports betting, like 4.5%. Its actually a loss leader typically. So for casinos that only have this type of wagering it taxes like this aren't going to work. A casino might turn over 50 billion yearly but only have a 2.5% edge in sports betting but you're proposing we tax them on the 50 billion. It doesnt work.

It will either push them out of business, or they'll find a way to screw the player to increase margin through even more deceptive products.

If the legal entity can't operate because of a tax on revenue than illegal offshore entities will gladly take their place and do.

The only solution really is sharia law, a complete ban and harsh punsihments for all operators and customers. I say this ironically but it actually is really the only solution, and even this doesnt work entirely.

matthewdgreen - 3 hours ago

Sports betting was, if not prohibited, then highly-proscribed for most of my life. You could do it in a few places like OTB, go to Vegas, or deal with an illegal bookie. People still gambled, but this made the problem orders of magnitude smaller than it is today. We did not need Sharia law or the guillotine, just an existing system of laws that were generally highly workable. It is not helpful to pretend like we need wild solutions just to achieve results we’ve already achieved and maintained for decades.

inigyou - 2 hours ago

Why do you assume the tax is on bets and not on profits

karlgkk - 7 hours ago

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.

consensus1 - 7 hours ago

Which we called the "stock market"

xoa - 6 hours ago

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 <1x gets unevenly redistributed and that's it. Nothing is generated, the collective set of people is strictly worse off after the gamble, with a few making gains off the backs of loss distributed amongst everyone else. All while hacking dopamine reward centers that didn't evolve for that.

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.

mullingitover - 5 hours ago

> or at least hasn't been

The stock market was so gambling that we had 'bucket shops' where people would just buy and sell fake stocks that tracked real stock prices.

Now we have public companies directly selling shares with no voting rights and no plans to ever pay dividends, which is the same thing.

ryandrake - 6 hours ago

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.

gruez - 5 hours ago

Pointing that out makes as much sense as "so you're against drugs? Did you know Tylenol is a drug? Ha checkmate!"

inigyou - 2 hours ago

Great example, because Tylenol is more dangerous than nearly every illegal drug.

xoa - 5 hours ago

>By a strict definition of gambling, the stock market is gambling: It's a monetary wager placed on an unknown future event.

No, that is not a strict definition of gambling, that is your own loose, personal and casual definition. The strict definition of the gambling in question under Arizona law (the subject of this article) is I believe partly under 13-3301 [0] and has a number of criteria that clearly differentiate it from investment (whether it be stock, loan by a bank or any other entity/person, or whatever else). Other polities will have their own flavors, but all of them are aimed at a net negative, destructive social activity. That's the whole point of regulating it, it's not some metaphysical philosophy thing about life having uncertainty it's about long experienced concrete harm. Trying to argue that buying shares in a broad index fund is a "wager that a meteor will not hit the Earth" is uninteresting.

>Just because it (often) is positive sum doesn't mean it isn't an unknown that people are betting money on.

It does actually! Positive sum changes everything in terms of collective incentives, strategies available and how investors can hedge risk. You may not choose to make use of all the tools available, but that doesn't make investment the equivalent of gambling. Part of the whole point of markets is to manage changing risk and information discovery (including dead ends) such that we still continue to grow overall.

----

0: https://www.azleg.gov/ars/13/03301.htm

consensus1 - 6 hours ago

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...

xoa - 6 hours ago

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.

usefulcat - 4 hours ago

The problem with this comparison is that it only really serves to water down the very real harms of actual gambling.

Unlike sports gambling or casinos, the stock market actually does have some legitimate utility, as compared to being (at best) pure entertainment.

inigyou - 2 hours ago

At what ratio does it become a problem? 0.01% actual utility and 99.99% gambling, or?

Cyclone_ - 5 hours ago

You can always just ban things. The families of those who go into financial ruin from gambling would prefer this.

pibaker - 4 hours ago

I don't think you can equate Kalshi style "prediction market" with gambling in Vegas. The worst thing that can happen in Vegas is you the gambler go bankrupt. In the meantime we already have reports of war intelligence in Ukraine being distorted so someone who betted on frontline movements can pocket some cash. Losing a war because some rich degenerate is trying to bet his way towards a second Ferrari is less unlikely than you imagined.

dghlsakjg - 4 hours ago

The reports that were altered were public reports at the ISW from open reporting, not government intelligence. If you lose a war because you based your tactics and strategy off of media reports instead of your own intel, you weren't going to win that war anyway.

That said, I recognize the broader point. Betting on everything, especially things that betters can directly influence is incredibly dangerous.

inigyou - 2 hours ago

Someone blew a hair dryer at a weather station at Paris CdG airport to win a bet.

zzgo - 5 hours ago

> gotcha mechanics

gacha mechanics

mw888 - 2 hours ago

Your argument of course sounds nice and fails under your inability to define "gambling."

I view favored house-odds, on arbitrary games or not, as unethical and predatory. This is the classic casino slot machine and related. However, Poker doesn't have house odds, it is a fair game.

Move one level up: prediction markets don't have house-odds if implemented plainly. On non-game events, they also have a positive externality, which already contradicts your claim: prediction markets predict quite well.

Yet another level up: investing in the stock market. The same authentic gambler who burns money into a slot machine can play the stock market to similarly disastrous ends. But if you define this as gambling and want to outlaw or limit it to 'professionals' then you bar people from capital markets which is absurd.

lern_too_spel - 4 hours ago

Why should it be comparable to tobacco? It should be derived from first principles. Figure out the external cost to society and tax it enough to pay for those costs after money distribution overheads. If there is no tax structure where the revenues exceed the costs, ban it.

The difficulty with taxing prediction markets is that encouraging gambling on some events incentivizes gamblers to try to influence those events in a way contrary to how people would want to influence them in the absence of gambling, which typically means gamblers are incentivized to influence events in a way that will increase societal harms. For some events, resolving one way or the other is inconsequential, but this is not true for many of the events I see people gambling on in prediction markets.

charcircuit - 5 hours ago

The government never needs to tax things. If you think it is negative to society then it can be banned so that money can be spent elsewhere.

EA-3167 - 7 hours ago

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, etc.

These laws have profound effects and it takes people time to learn about what they pertain to, especially new technology or new ways of using it. It's good to have periods of feedback between the public, the courts, the legislature and the executive branch. The same things that slow down what we most want to happen quickly also slow down the things we desperately want to avoid.

"If only the law moved as quickly as an individual" is great until you get a guy like Trump in power.

pennomi - 6 hours ago

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.

meowkit - 5 hours ago

Was great when the world ran on horses and whale blubber.

The legal system tells itself this noble story of measured action without realizing it actually became the bad guy many decades ago.

My brief little opinion here is half informed from dating a lawyer for a few years.

hungryhobbit - 9 hours ago

The appeals court found sports betting isn’t shielded by the federal law used to block Kris Mayes’ prosecution.

dcrazy - 8 hours ago

Hope dang comes in with a headline rewrite

Detrytus - 7 hours ago

and why would he do that? It is an actual title of the linked article.

crossroadsguy - 4 hours ago

(Not American)

What does 9th circuit or some circuit court mean?

It some name of a specific court, just not the place name?

Or is it special kind of court and “9” is some sort of level? Importance or hierarchy related? Escalation level? (Assuming your SC eventually is also at the top like in India)

apples_oranges - 6 minutes ago

I see a lot of questions here that can be googled or asked with AI chat. Good question, but I also think, why didn’t that person just find out themselves? It’s so easy..

thoughtpeddler - 2 hours ago

From my hazy recollection from law school, the US appeals courts are called "circuits" because back in the day, they weren't actual buildings but rather judges that would go around town-to-town within their jurisdiction in a horse-drawn carriage 'in a circuit' (that corresponded to a certain geographic area). The name just stuck even after they were permanently enshrined into physical structures (each corresponding to a given region).

mayneack - 3 hours ago

9th is a region (includes California) circuit is a level (appeals court right below Supreme)

lokar - 7 hours ago

I wonder what this means for cases under loss recovery acts in states that have them.

BobbyTables2 - 6 hours ago

Looks like Kalshi lost its bet…

gregjw - 3 hours ago

how does anyone regard these things as innovation

8note - 6 hours ago

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

steveBK123 - 5 hours ago

Lots of bespoke insurance already exists.

Lloyds will insure your rocket cargo or even provide terrorist strikes.

Doesn’t mean we need people wagering at kalshi on “number of terrorism fatalities in London before end of 2025”.

ketzu - 1 hour ago

> Doesn’t mean we need people wagering at kalshi on “number of terrorism fatalities in London before end of 2025”.

Reminds me of something from the last decade, but I am not sure anymore if it was a discussion or a desceiption: how to structure a "murder for hire" platform to give it plausible deniability/legality by turning it into bets. "I bet $100.000 @ketzu lives to the end of the year" can be read as life insurance, tasteless betting, or as a challenge to someone betting against it. (which is why here you need a legitimate interest to buy life insurance on someone)

Domenic_S - 4 hours ago

> or even provide terrorist strikes.

I'm sorry, Lloyd's will _what_??

johnnyApplePRNG - 6 hours ago

regulated entities mad at unregulated entities, nothing to see here, yawn

anigbrowl - 5 hours ago

Actually exactly the reverse

morkalork - 7 hours ago

Rem when mafia bookies running sports betting was a subplot on The Soprano's? It wasn't that long ago.

SoftTalker - 5 hours ago

Well they are still doing it.

adzm - 5 hours ago

People seem to be blissfully unaware that illegal and underground gambling is still going very strong.

vkou - 4 hours ago

It's easier to be blissfully unaware when the illegal books don't bombard every fucking screen and surface with ads.

fenestella - 6 hours ago

[flagged]

aabdi - 7 hours ago

[dead]

delichon - 7 hours ago

> As an example, the court explained that whether the Super Bowl happens is an “occurrence,” but who wins it is not.

This level of parsing looks like judicial legislation to me. Isn't it one occurrence if the Rams win and another if the Packers win? Better that they declare the law void for vagueness and give the legislature another shot at it. Guessing what the words mean, when it is not at all clear to professionals let alone to the average citizen does not give proper notification of what the law is to the people subject to it.

mandevil - 7 hours ago

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 exchange. If Kalshi had gotten the law thrown out for vagueness then basically there was a road map for making any law that got in the way of a company making money thrown out for vagueness.

The key is that up until a few years ago basically the universal consensus was that sports gambling was not possible on a CFTC regulated exchange, then all of a sudden Kalshi did it and now they are trying to pay enough lawyers to get them to justify it. This ruling is not judicial legislation, this is demanding that companies actually follow the law.

delichon - 7 hours ago

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

jmalicki - 6 hours ago

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?

delichon - 6 hours ago

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

jmalicki - 4 hours ago

The idea is to provide overarching guidance, but when there is devil in the details, leave that up to courts to consider when there is a real actual issue at play, rather than legislators in the ivory tower theorizing about how things might play out.

The statute gives the general intent, but with an understanding that until the shit hits the fan in an actual court case, noone will have truly considered the detailed ramifications, so leave some intentional ambiguity there for the courts to resolve on real, actual, grounded cases rather than theorizing.

And if the legislature disagrees with a courts opinion about the ambiguity it left, it is very free to clarify in statute, which will override the court! (Unless the issue is constitutional, in which case the legislature is very free to draft a constitutional amendment!)

jubilanti - 3 hours ago

I love it when programmers try to play lawyer. Law is not code.

jmalicki - 6 hours ago

From the opinion:

"Because the definitions of event and occurrence do not resolve the issue before us, we must also consider the statutory context"

They talk about this and the exact definitions for basically the entire opinion. It's not just "meh, I felt like it". They are dealing with how these words have been defined in prior statutes.