Spain blocks prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi over lack of gambling licence

These - especially Polymarket - should be illegal globally, as they incentivize people with power to manipulate the real world in horribly destructive ways to win a bet.

I would not be surprised if people are murdered at some point to reap the payout of some related bet.

I see a lot of comments like this is the blocking of prediction markets about politics, war, etc.

It's important to remember that ~80% of activity Polymarket and ~90% of Kalshi, by volume, are sports. These are effectively sports betting websites with prediction markets on the side.

When I see people making money on Iran attacks, and murder of heads of state - it shows clearly something is deeply wrong with Polymarket. Its a level worse than Vegas or Indian casinos. A literal ticket to hell. I'm all for banning these evil sites.

Didn't we learn our lesson in SimCity? Crime went up when you added a casino.. but governments gained a little tax revenue... We seem to get the crime (see insider trading) but no tax revenue... Maybe I'm just showing my age...

Good.

Just naming things differently does not work in other countries.

If it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

I don't usually see advertisements, but I was in a position recently to see a real-life television stream, and I was quite surprised to see them run an advertisement for Kalshi. I was pretty surprised that something like this would be advertised to normal people. I'd half expect the next ad to be for a hitman, or for beating your wife, or something. Seems crazy that this is tolerated whatsoever.

It's not cut and dry to differentiate between the act and the wager.

One issue is that prediction markets provide financial incentives to perform actions in the real world. For example, if I want a head of state murdered, I can wager lots of money that they won't be murdered. If somebody wants to earn that money, they can simply bet against me and then murder them.

It's not an dispassionate wager like betting on roulette, it's a wager that directly influences the real world, at least a bit.

Of course you could directly hire an assassin, but that doesn't come with plausible deniability.

please stop calling them prediction markets. It's not even accurate, you do not buy a prediciton

Good. Now take the next step and ban them outright.

Good

Lol it could not possibly be the coincidence that there were bets on ex prime minister Zapatero going to jail before the 30th of June or other meme bets making the rounds in Spain in the last couple of days.

Polymarket is a casino. A roulette wheel is not a "market". You can't beat the house.

Are they still doing blocks so configuring either Google's DNS or Cloudflare DNS will still unblock the sites?

Well, that makes perfect sense. The whole world will eventually do the same. gambling with software is still gambling, just like accounting with software is still accounting.

well, it's gambling.

Oh so finally someone is calling a spade a spade.

"We're blocking this thing"

"Why, because it's bad?"

"No, because they they're not giving the right parties[1] a cut"

Never change government, never change.

[1] Based on my experience with casinos it's probably a bunch of make-work compliance industry and/or compulsory middle men who pretend to put a veneer of fairness on things

Do stock markets have gambling licenses?

Who asked Spain, this country is irrelevant to anything.

These services run on the blockchain, right? So in effect, there is no blocking them.

Governments should not interfere with the private decisions of adults. If people want to gamble, let them. If you do not like gambling, then do not gamble. But do not use the government to force your "moral/ethical" preferences on everyone else.

They require no gambling license to be a stock broker on the Bolsa de Madrid stock exchange.

Interesting comments here. I'd rather have prediction markets than casinos or sports betting services, because in the latter, you're playing again the house which can and will ban you for winning too much, while prediction markets are simply market makers taking a fee.

Prediction markets are also regulated by the CFTC as they're futures contracts technically.