White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgld65x396go

by chrischapman • 3 months ago

152 81 3 months ago

bbc.co.uk

113• 3 months ago

Whew! Glad that's sorted.

mechoblast• 3 months ago

Surely half millions on prediction markets is pennies compared to what is getting made on oil futures/stocks.

enoint• 3 months ago

You’d think so, but these types of people are afraid of stocks or options and find prediction websites easier to use.

Tangurena2• 3 months ago

It is easier for the SEC to investigate futures, stocks & options. Some of the prediction/gambling markets use crypto and do not participate in "Know Your Customer" regulations.

derwiki• 3 months ago

They’re doing money transmission and they’re not doing KYC? Is that illegal or “really frowned upon”?

skippyboxedhero2• 3 months ago

It is far easier in crypto. It is much more difficult in futures...as the case of a recent repeat Presidential candidate showed.

That will change when people realise crypto isn't anonymous...but that day isn't today.

bregma3• 3 months ago

    Step 1: Gut the SEC
    Step 2: Buy $100,000,000 in oil futures 15 minutes before bombing starts
    Step 3: ???
    Step 4: PROFIT!!!

rf15• 3 months ago

Honestly not that big a difference here. Both can be loosely interpreted as gambling, especially with the same rough upsides (money without production or consumption!) downsides (addiction, critical existence failure of all your savings) and the corruption and perverse incentives they invite.

Havoc• 3 months ago

It’s laughable that it’s even necessary to tell them.

Hey don’t abuse privileged workplace information for personal gain isn’t exactly a fresh notion.

Imagine if professionals like lawyers and accountants operated like that.

tdeck3• 3 months ago

Consider the kind of people who would staff this white house.

whywhywhywhy2• 3 months ago

It's bipartisan, just look at Pelosi's portfolio.

asHqt14• 3 months ago

It is understandable that they require coaching on this issue when betting markets are being deregulated and Trump Jr. is invested in Polymarket.

p-o• 3 months ago

I'm sure it's a preventive measure and no one placed bets to enrich themselves in the last 12 months...

mcs5280• 3 months ago

*unless they give the big guy a 50% cut

josefresco• 3 months ago

Investor highlights for each platform:

Kalshi: Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Y Combinator, Charles Schwab, Henry Kravis (KKR), and CapitalG (Alphabet).

Polymarket: Intercontinental Exchange (ICE - parent of the NYSE), Founders Fund (Peter Thiel), Vitalik Buterin, and 1789 Capital (Donald Trump Jr.).

PredictIt: Primarily supported by Aristotle International (a political tech firm) and historically Victoria University of Wellington.

Donald Trump Jr.: Prominent investor in Polymarket through his firm, 1789 Capital, and serves as a paid strategic advisor to Kalshi.

The current CFTC Chairman, Michael Selig, created a 35-member panel to draft new regulations for prediction markets. This panel includes the CEOs of the platforms they regulate, such as Shayne Coplan (Polymarket) and Tarek Mansour (Kalshi).

tdeck3• 3 months ago

These companies were blatant about operating illegally in the US. I remember being shocked to see the live billboard polymarket ads in Philadelphia on the eve of the election. I guess there are too many scandals these days for this to stand out.

twelvedogs• 3 months ago

Only the top guys are allowed to do insider trading! You guys are making it very very slightly more obvious!!

ahartmetz• 3 months ago

Does that include friends and cousins? Asking for a friend or cousin.

exabrial• 3 months ago

While we’re at it, how about all Congress?

adabyron• 3 months ago

You need to apply it to staff as well and also the judicial branch and all of their staff. Then to all of their family as well.

The way I understand insider trading is usually prosecuted is you find out who made the bet & then you have to track down their communications to see if they got tipped off.

coldpie• 3 months ago

There is currently a bill proposed to do that (for stocks, not prediction market betting, but eh it's a start): https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr5106

It currently has 99 Democratic sponsors and 31 Republican sponsors (note: there are more Republicans than Democrats in the House). It will probably not make it out of committee. 2 of the 4 Democrats on the committee have sponsored it; 0 of the 8 Republicans have.

ajross• 3 months ago

Reasons to treat these situations differently:

1. The executive is doing very obvious insider trading, you can point at exact trades and bets that are clearly being made based on inside info. That's very different than the statistical arguments made about congressional portfolios.

2. Congress isn't privy to the same kind of inside info. Congress will know about changes in government spending with a few weeks to a month or so of lead time. The executive insiders were timing trades down, literally, to the minutes before the start of military action.

Basically that's a terrible whataboutist game you're playing.

dylan604• 3 months ago

I'm sure every POTUS has at one point thought it would be great if they could dictate what congress does

bcjdjsndon• 3 months ago

When you elect a bunch of TV wannabes to run your country this is what happens.

keviniam• 3 months ago

I don't understand why anybody without access to serious inside information is currently betting on prediction markets. It's clear that insiders are absolutely going to eat your lunch. So who are the suckers who are losing all this money?

I guess this isn't true for all things you might bet on, but it seems to be true for a lot of them.

ceejayoz3• 3 months ago

So who are the suckers who are losing all this money?

Random people who saw an ad or their favorite influencer shilling it.

Like when my neighbors started asking me about NFTs.

mrguyorama• 3 months ago

There does seem to be a distinct class of "Serial Bagholders" though. People who thought NFTs were going to be their "Ticket" and lost a lot, and then the next thing was going to be their "Ticket", etc etc.

I genuinely don't understand how they have money to keep losing.

JKCalhoun• 3 months ago

Kind of what I was thinking. If it is essentially InsidrBetz.com why bet at all? This is the kind of thing that could (should, anyway) kill the industry.

jack_pp• 3 months ago

Arrogance / hubris. Some people even if they know it's rigged will believe they know which side the insiders are on

seanalltogether• 3 months ago

I remember reading something awhile ago in regards to why people were investing in NFTs when it seemed so clear they were a scam. The gist of it was that it's easy to get into cryptocurrency, but it's hard to get out. KYC, taxes, age requirements, currency fees, etc are enough of a barrier that many people would rather just keep those assets in virtual space. Polymarket is the answer to the question "Well what else am I gonna do with this crypto I own"

OutOfHere3• 3 months ago

That's complete nonsense for the simple reason that it is possible to pay just fine with crypto on various sites, also to buy major gift cards. No KYC applies to these actions. We are not living in 2016.

raincole• 3 months ago

The same goes for stock market too.

"But we have laws criminalizing insider trading..." the only proper response to this is: hahahaha.

duped• 3 months ago

People go to casinos despite knowing the house has the edge in games. Gambling is addictive.

vanviegen• 3 months ago

Yes, but you also know exactly how large that edge is. And it's relatively small.

tyjen• 3 months ago

There's no shortage of people willing to make extremely poor financial decisions on games of chance, it's why gambling was heavily regulated. Visit a casino and witness addiction in-person, it's a sad sight.

finghin• 3 months ago

Prediction markets are ridiculously diverse so it’s quite a stretch to say that imo.

mothballed• 3 months ago

Hedging is one rational reason.

simonw• 3 months ago

The ads for prediction markets on TikTok are aggressive - like (paraphrasing) "this is your new source of passive income and you'd be crazy to miss it" aggressive.

tdeck3• 3 months ago

So basically the standard online scam script for 20+ years but in a TikTok. I remember seeing AdWords text ads in the 2000s for "make $$$ working from home".

skippyboxedhero2• 3 months ago

It is either not being offered in depth by anyone market-maker (part of the answer given the relatively small revenue opportunity) or it is being offered by people who aren't sophisticated enough.

Bookmakers offer markets on events where someone can know the outcome. The difference is that they have tools to prevent adverse selection.

Prediction markets offer none of those protections so the market structure is going to end up being very different (which is already happening, revenue opportunity from politics isn't huge). There are other examples of this around latency arb, market is going to be very different.

Also, I will point out that most insiders are probably going to be losing money too. All that you ever read is the final outcome, you don't read the stuff that happens before. Politics is, generally, not a good market because the actual event is driven by decisions made by people. Election markets are fine but political event markets are not good, even if you have inside information.

lmkg• 3 months ago

My personal conspiracy theory is that in some cases, the "loser" is in on the graft to. It's a way to launder bribes.

WarmWash• 3 months ago

You believe you are betting on the side of the insiders.

Everyone knows the Casino has the edge, but people still play heavily anyway.

bregma3• 3 months ago

So who are the suckers who are losing all this money?

Gambling is just a tax on the stupid. Is it surprising it's rampant in certain institutions?

mchusma• 3 months ago

I did a bit for fun and felt there were areas where I did do well. However, the problems with these markets is the contracts are often such where you can win or lose on obscure technicalities. I bet on 5 things, and 4 were resolved in ways I felt were non obvious.

For example, will the Ayatollah be out by April. Lost because death apparently did not count. Bet Anthropic would advertise at the superbowl. Lost because while they did so they advertised Claude not for the company.

Once it became clear that it was an exercise in legalese, I was done.

nslsm• 3 months ago

Wow, those examples are crazy. It’s basically fraud.

sneed-oil• 3 months ago

I guess I'm one of those suckers, except that so far I've made a 3x return on the small sum I bet, I would say it's a hedge. I’ve been betting on the Iran war since mid February, the reasoning was that if the conflict happened, my payout would offset some of the jump in my cost of living. I could have used traditional financial instruments to buy options or oil futures or gold, but there's more friction there and I already had some crypto.

_DeadFred_• 3 months ago

Ah yes, the war futures exchange keeping us able to afford food.

Somehow 2026 took the Ancient Rome model of profit from destruction and enshitified and made it even worse and more grotesque. WTF are we even doing?

feverzsj• 3 months ago

Isn't that in the law?

cyanydeez• 3 months ago

If it were in the law, which part of the justice system do you think would be:

1. Capable

2. Desirous of

3. Competently followed

daveguy• 3 months ago

It is in SEC regulated markets like NYSE and NASDAQ. But prediction markets are grifty garbage. Insider trading laws only apply to regulated markets.

Just about anything to do with crypto is sketchy. I don't know why anyone still messes with it. Maybe they just like propping up Iran's oil tolls, ransomware perps, and shovelling money to Dumpty and his merry band of grifters?

qsort• 3 months ago

insane they needed to be told

ramon156• 3 months ago

Naughty! Anyway

vntok• 3 months ago

"Oh behave! Hehehehehe" https://youtu.be/u2vAFhXDFHk

steveBK123• 3 months ago

And how about friends & family without official roles, congressional appointment process approvals, etc who just.. happen to be around a lot and involved in a lot of stuff?

jeffwask• 3 months ago

Please don't do insider trading. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

nevi-me• 3 months ago

Reminds me of our President (SA) asking his colleagues to sign a pledge not to do corruption; when there's already a swearing in that does the same thing.

OutOfHere3• 3 months ago

For those who live in the red-pilled real world, just don't trade on something where controlling insiders (also with a potential conflict-of-interest) can beat you at the game. This is different from bets with non-controlling insiders with no conflict-of-interest.

maerF0x0• 3 months ago

Isn't that nearly everything public?

scoofy• 3 months ago

“Please don’t gamble except for entertainment purposes.”

– Las Vegas

penguin_booze• 3 months ago

You missed the fine print at the bottom: "lolz".

MikeNotThePope• 3 months ago

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

josefritzishere• 3 months ago

It is trully pathetic that this needs to be said.

RankingMember• 3 months ago

If there's one positive that can be made of this admin, it's the realization that all the things that we thought went without saying ("don't profit from the office", "don't insider trade", "don't casually leak confidential information to our enemies") need much stronger enforcement mechanisms.

bregma3• 3 months ago

They didn't go without saying: there are laws on the books explicitly making them illegal. But a law that is not enforced is not justice, and a law that is unevenly enforced is an injustice.

hydrogen7800• 3 months ago

Too much of our government requires/required its trustees to act in good faith. Clearly that was too vulnerable. And I realize it sounds naive to think that past trustees were acting in good faith, but there are relative degrees of that.

MyHonestOpinon• 3 months ago

Aside from the current horrible admnistracion. If I understand correctly, One of the strengths of prediction markets is to try to get the insiders to come in and provide insider information thus improving the total info available.

dwaltrip• 3 months ago

One of the weaknesses is incentivizing people to do horrible things, if that makes their bet a wining one.

qsera3• 3 months ago

It also incentivize people to follow the events and remember stuff so that they are better equipped to make predictions.

I think it incentivize people to use their head and may be even select better leaders.

qsera3• 3 months ago

I think the proper thing to do would be to forbid these markets to make bets on stuff that can be won by using only insider information.

namenotrequired• 3 months ago

Like the stock market?

qsera3• 3 months ago

Mmm..yea. But stock market is not something new, and this possibility always existed.

So I was only thinking about Poloymarket and stuff like that.

diab0lic• 3 months ago

I realize yours is the hip and edgy take but plenty of people have made a lot of money in the stock market without using material non public information.

DesiLurker• 3 months ago

its free for all at the moment. its not like any of these rule were ever enforced before, lots of our govt worked on honor system & DJT exploited the heck out of it all.

polyterative• 3 months ago

Only they can make the money.

White House staff told not to place bets on prediction markets

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