U.S. looks to ban election betting as traders flock to prediction sites

Markets Today ^ | Aug 17 | Story by Tony Romm

[RandFan]

Even before President Joe Biden had announced his exit from the 2024 election, thousands of voters flocked to the website PredictIt last month, hoping to place bets on the other candidates who might win in his stead.

It amounted to an active week of trading on the political prediction marketplace, which fashions itself as a more accurate alternative to public polls. And federal regulators are looking to outlaw it.

The U.S. government has embarked on a broad crackdown against election betting, relying on a mix of newly proposed rules and ongoing court cases to try to stamp out a nascent industry that critics call a potential threat to democracy.

To Democrats, these wagers on the outcome of a particular campaign invite more money into an electoral system that’s already rife with it. But the staunchest backers of political prediction marketplaces insist that the fears of election interference are overstated — and that the insights gleaned from their data serve a greater purpose. “To me, it is enormous corruption,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who expressed fear that well-heeled political or corporate interests could someday come to think, “Hey, I will spend millions of dollars smearing some candidate to make sure the candidate I bet on wins.”

The regulatory push is the work of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), whose chairman, Rostin Behnam, has pursued rules that would ban election-related betting on commercial exchanges under its watch. Citing a lack of staff and resources, the agency has argued it is not equipped to serve as an election watchdog and monitor political markets for fraud or manipulation.

[RandFan]

Yes because prohibition works...

[thegagline]

Yes because prohibition works...

Many nights I have celebrated the 21st Amendment.

[enduserindy]

Further in they replace government with democrits. I guess they don’t like those odds.

[DIRTYSECRET]

The NFL is in Vegas. Why-because it’s there.

[catnipman]

i thought using predictit.com betting (based in Ireland) was already outlawed in the U.S.

predictit.com is the best betting site because betters bet against each other and the house takes only a very small cut, but otherwise doesn’t participate by activities such as making odds ...

[RandFan]

There’s a lawsuit but the judge is allowing them to operate for now

[frank ballenger]

I’ll give them 8 to 5 they won’t succeed.

[VanShuyten]

“ To Democrats, these wagers on the outcome of a particular campaign invite more money into an electoral system that’s already rife with it.”

Said B’rer Donkey.

[catnipman]

i did not know that!

thanks!

[rottweiller_inc]

And their nefarious motive is... To try to draw that money into the campaigns kinda like disqualifying other democrats from the ballot.

[Ex-Con777]

Nothing preserves democracy like taking away freedoms and restricting private transactions..

EC

[hoagy62]

I acknowledge that I may be off track, but I’m coming at it from a different point of view. I’m wondering if certain people do not want certain races to be looked at with a magnifying glass. Say somebody made a rather large bet on the presidential outcome. And it just happened to go their way, especially if it’s the democrats that win. Do you think that anybody wants anybody looking closely at vote outcomes ??