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California lawmakers call for crackdown on wildfire betting
ktla ^ | Aug 12, 2026 | Jocelyn Fiset, Shelby Nelson

Posted on 08/12/2026 5:04:22 PM PDT by BenLurkin

With recent wildfires causing widespread destruction in Southern California, how would you feel about someone profiting off of the devastating loss of your home or community?

It turns out, people are placing bets on wildfires on prediction markets like Polymarket, and now California lawmakers are calling for a crackdown on the concerning new trend, warning those bets could create an incentive for arson.

...

They’re urging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to implement what they call “common sense guardrails” to prevent people from profiting off of the suffering and devastation on digital gambling sites.

“It’s important to point out that federal law already prohibits gambling online for things like assassinations or terrorism,” said KTLA consumer reporter David Lazarus. “Well, it turns out lawmakers neglected to include natural disasters like wildfires as a part of that. So now people are gambling on things like the L.A. fires.”

The senators are pointing to prediction markets like Polymarket, where they say the platform accepted more than $1.2 million in bets surrounding the 2025 Eaton Fire, which killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 buildings, and the Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed 6,837 structures.

(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...


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1 posted on 08/12/2026 5:04:22 PM PDT by BenLurkin
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The world as gone nuts.


2 posted on 08/12/2026 5:04:40 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

They are more worried about how the betting makes them look bad than actually doing something to stop the wildfires, which would stop the betting in the end.

Typical democrats


3 posted on 08/12/2026 5:15:00 PM PDT by Skwor
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To: BenLurkin

Yep.


4 posted on 08/12/2026 5:19:03 PM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: Skwor

Libtarded traitors.


5 posted on 08/12/2026 5:19:22 PM PDT by No name given ( Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
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To: BenLurkin
Been nuts loong time

Weather has been a tradable commodity since 1997 when the first OTC weather trade was made. Two years later the Chicago Mercantile Exchange got in the game and investopedia.com includes weather trading in its search engines.

Maybe the next time you get a reach around email from your congressional representatives expressing heartfelt concern, you might want to write back and ask her what are the chances that what you’re experiencing isn’t the result of weather modification meeting up with market manipulation.

6 posted on 08/12/2026 5:44:10 PM PDT by MurrietaMadman (The Gates of hell shall not prevail against you )
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