When I saw that statement, from a company spokesperson, it was striking.
Is it now respectable and advisable for a corporation to make official statements like this?
If that's the case, I would've expected to the statement to be something like, "From our understanding, our only crime is to have presented an analysis that the outgoing administration also understood to be valid."
We have no information about why they are there, so you conclude it must be political retribution and they must be protected. THIS is why Trump won. So many people have zero critical thinking skills. When you see something that for which you have no information, you can say "I wonder what is going on." Then, you stop. Things that could be:
* Using collected data to facility spear phishing campaigns. * Running a child pornography/sex trafficking ring. * Participating in dogfighting. * Been a back channel for selling trade secrets. * Had some people killed. * Routing all the information collected to foreign groups, like Russia. * or.. has the other half of messages to someone under investigation whose phone locked.
But, given I have zero evidence to support any of this, let's stick with "let's see what they say."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/13/fbi-raid-...
For ever...
Their audience here is the incoming administration, which is founded on party loyalty and an "us-vs-them" mindset, where "them" are the corrupt elites.
They're making a bet that whoever is prosecuting them in 4 months is going to be a lot friendlier to them if they act like victims of a vengeful democratic elite, and they're probably right. Really smart, honestly.
This kind of conspiratorial thinking dominates the Republican party and such a story would play well with the base. There is a clear motive for this approach - and it seems likely to work.
That the FBI raided the home of an individual most likely means a criminal investigation of that person, for a federal crime or a crime that crosses state boundaries.
I guess it follows the pattern of the Binance investigation where they were able to show the Binance CEO instructed people to make sure the technical measures they implemented to ensure only non-US people were on their exchange were easy to bypass.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-13/polymarke...
they are investigating Polymarket itself
It's not about political inclination but rather that there's no reason to keep trusting a source that has lied repeatedly, sensationalized repeatedly, and seems to have a very loose relationship with being "journalism" rather than entertainment (bait).
- Polymarket is still very illegal in the US
- Lol. We all know it's easy to get around that
- If the CEO knew or was complicit in US citizens breaking laws, he could be in trouble. And if there was evidence he was encouraging it, he could be in big trouble
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-federal-court-upholds-rulin...
> Polymarket has blocked access to Americans since 2022, following a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which accused the company of running an unregistered derivatives-trading platform. Traders say the ban on U.S. users can be circumvented using virtual private networks.
>Election betting was legalized in the U.S. under a recent federal court ruling, but only for CFTC-regulated markets, so Polymarket has remained off-limits to Americans.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/fbi-polymarket-ceo-investiga...
Polymarket has avoided coming under regulation by the CFTC by avoiding US users. For their markets to be legal under current regulations they'd have to have all their markets approved by CFTC.
It should be obvious what happened here: Polymarket has been offering grey or black markets to users, using only IP address as the discriminator, which is very easy to work around. They've operated under the Feds' radar for quite some time, and the Feds noticed them after they started getting significant press regarding the election.
The election is the reason they got noticed, but the likely crime itself is sports, not elections.
Fireworks are illegal in NY and have been illegal in PA for much of the past two decades. Despite this, the border is crawling with fireworks stores. PA made it illegal to sell fireworks to PA residents, but totally legal to sell to residents of neighboring states provided they immediately transport them over state lines.
the frontpage being almost exclusively about US politics is kind of a giveaway
I most receently used the site yesterday to see what the incumbent Australian government’s reelection chances are after they tabled ‘ID and age requirements to use social media’ laws, but polymarket didn’t seem to have Australian politics odds, so I was left using oddschecker, which is inferior due to the annoying way it displays odds and it not storing historical data.
I think that phrasing is a bit too optimistic. Even in cases where the "prediction" cannot influence the outcome, the primary "learning about the world" involves the imputed opinions of bettors.
Betting at horse-races doesn't teach you nearly as much about horses as actually going to the stables. :P
Edit: to be clear, I’m referring to polymarket essentially “calling” each swing state well before the networks did. I’m not just referring to the overall outcome.
I've heard this point argued a few different ways, and I have to say: this is the most idiotic way of analyzing the world I can imagine. Don't listen to gamblers or people who think superforecasters are a real thing. Studying the world and reflecting on it thoughtfully will get you a lot further than these probabilities ever will.
Was he arrested? The article only mentions a search.
Innocent until proven guilty is a cornerstone of our civilization. We should not shame anyone who has been searched or arrested by the police.
See Alex Tabarrok's triumphant take from before the raid: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/11/pr...
Here's an interesting question. We know that if a bettor in a prediction market wants to manipulate the market's prediction, it's likely to be extremely costly for them (though Théo's big bet on Polymarket seems to have shifted it a lot, so maybe we should doubt this theory). Does the operator of a prediction market have less-costly ways to manipulate the prediction?
Other than just shutting down the market permanently on Election Day, Mt. Gox style, which is an extremely profitable scam whether you manipulated the predictions or not.
About a decade ago I was told by someone on GOOG's anti-spam team that they had thought they'd finally made it too costly to spam, only to discover that political spammers just didn't care how much it cost.
I make an account from a US IP. I can’t make a bet.
I use a VPN, while still logged into the same account. I can make a bet. It’s possible that simple IP geo-fences aren’t considered “good enough” to avoid KYC if other information is available (prior IP address or even just IP at signup)
I don't even understand what the conspiracy theory is here. Why would that be something the Biden administration would seek retribution for? And even it were, how would they possibly achieve it before the new administration takes office?
“Political retribution by the outgoing administration” = “I’m the enemy of your enemy”. “Correctly called the 2024 presidential election” = “I’m flattering you on your glorious victory over our shared foe, now hook a brother up.”
- Many in the "crypto community" have perceive the Biden administration as hostile to it (Polymarket uses Polygon crypto).
- Peter Thiel is an investor in Polymarket. Thiel backed Trump in '16 and is often Republican aligned. Additionally, JD Vance once worked for Thiel. Thiel was a (very) major funder of Vance's senate election campaign.
- Polymarket's markets predicted Trump to win. This, to me, is the biggest stretch of all the conspiracy type stuff. But I guess it goes, "You put your thumb on the scales to show Trump was going to win. <...some causal chain of events...> We lost. Now we're going to punish you."
My guess is that it's as straightforward as: many bettors on Polymarket are U.S. citizens. Polymarket knows this and in all likelihood facilitates this, maintaining the thinnest possible veneer of plausible deniability. While betting on U.S. elections by U.S. bettors is apparently legal [1], it still requires market makers to submit to some registration process. That requirement has not been fulfilled by Polymarket. Also, in 2022 Polymarket settled a case with the CFTC for operating an unregistered derivatives market [2]. Who knows, it might just be related to a violation of that settlement?
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/election-bett...
Polymarket probably thinks that the Biden administration is angry with them for showing how the population truly feels as all other sources are obviously corrupt /s
* E.g. the New Yorker, "Polymarket has seen a recent surge in pro-Trump election bets. Is it the movement of a rational market or a concerted campaign?" or Newsweek, "Polymarket Prediction Platform Possibly Manipulated to Favor Trump"
The FBI is quite good at serving multiple warrants in multiple locations at the same time when pursuing conspiracies. Presumably, in the scenario where they are the conspiracy, they could do just as well.
It doesn't seem like a great conspiracy theory to explain what actually happened.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/operation-choke-point-2-0-...
Because insurance is quite literally a prediction market.
Not trying to be snarky, I know certain religions actually do consider insurance to be gambling.
its more wasteful for some segment of our society to need a distinction between investing or gambling at all, the people they're competing against don't care, don't have any cultural limitation, religious limitation, or peer group that needs this distinction. and your "legitimizes" wording looks based on needing a distinction.
even with the "positive or negative expected value" metrics to distinguish some financial games, I've traded options contracts with a lower expected value than a table game at a casino. so just don't worry about the distinction and use our words for the specific game we're playing. prediction markets are prediction markets.
In any case, attempting to use a derogatory or denigrating euphemism to refer to something is usually less productive than simply exposing (what you perceive to be) its faults. What specific issues do you have with these markets/exchanges?
Gambling is a destructive addition that the vast majority of participants cannot manage well. It harms not only them, but their children and their spouses. How many a kid's college fund has gone up in smoke? A lot of harm is done to very innocent people in pursuit of a ten second rush. (Much like all other addictions.)
I also very respectfully disagree that inventing a name for something is not productive - it's incredible effective, in fact. That's why political campaigns often favour duelling names over hot button issues: it's easier to win broad based support from soccer moms and football dads for 'marriage equality', whereas 'homosexual marriage' may be a harder sell. See also 'medicare for all' versus 'socialized medicine', 'pro-choice' v 'pro-life' etc.
The rest of what we see are (binary) event contracts (options)
Based on my understanding, which may be incorrect, they seem to be basically a rebranding of binary options which were illegal in the US for the longest time. With a clever renaming trick things now work :)
(And I got the term "gambling exchange" from the UK where Betfair Exhange basically does what Polymarket do since 2000, without the Crypto glamour.)
And now they are trying to play with society from the top-down by rebranding as "prediction markets for everything", not only pretending to sell a crystal ball but also setting up the incentives for those at the top of the financial system to destroy society and bet on the destruction of society at the same time. I say: shatter their poker chips, dissolve the house, don't allow them to accumulate any more of this type of power.
Typically they get "debanked" without explanation, and it's really hard to run a startup without a bank account...
This podcast with a16z co-founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz tells the stories: https://youtu.be/g4jWb-0nj44?si=_hK92xyF56lG0ezd&t=100
2. A ton of options trading is gambling, and binary options on events particularly so. Doesn't mean it should be illegal, of course, but I think that's just a facially obvious truth that we should all be honest with one another about.
Feels wrong.
https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-85000-protection-government-...
> " Any action likely to raise an issue or the perception of an issue under this provision requires consultation with the Public Integrity Section, and such action shall not be taken if the Public Integrity Section advises that further consultation is required with the Deputy Attorney General or Attorney General. "
Don't get stuck in a framing story.
Another could be concern of doing anything visibly election related prior to the election, in case the winner didn’t like the action.
Of course, the exact meaning of "necessary" is the problem. We can probably all agree that letting a serial murderer kill more people in order to have more evidence against him would be an absolute abomination. But the situation is not that clear with white-collar crime, especially the sort of crime where the harm is not immediately obvious.
Maybe the fact that the FBI could wait that long before pouncing indicates that this sort of betting is, in fact, a victimless crime.
I think in this case, polymarket allows betting on anything, competitors got betting on the election legalized (https://www.barrons.com/news/last-minute-legal-ruling-allows...), so they get the cash from polymarket's idea then get them banned/stopped long enough to take their market share.
VC's call it Regulatory Capture, politicians call it corruption.
> VC's call it Regulatory Capture
This isn't regulatory capture. You can disagree with the regulation, but the barrier to entry here is not that high. Kalshi is like 5 years old.
"Capture" is a thing, and it does not just mean "any regulation that I happen to disagree with".
You do need capital to stand up a regulated exchange, but, then, you also need capital to stand up an unregulated exchange. And the difference between those two numbers is not nearly big enough to come anywhere close to creating capture.
Because the conspiracy theorists wouldn't have gone to town if the market predicting Trump's win were shut down before the election?
Polymarket hit popular imagination in the summer of 2023 with the Titan submersible [1]. American political betting didn't hit papers until earlier this year. We're well within normal FBI timelines for executing a first search.
[1] https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-missing-submarine-be-f...
