You Can Now Legally Bet On the 2024 Congressional Elections (apnews.com)
- Reference: 0174986269
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/13/0145211/you-can-now-legally-bet-on-the-2024-congressional-elections
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/betting-on-elections-kalshi-gambling-trump-harris-882f1e6e4f434f0e6ac6e5985a5583ce
> A startup company on Thursday began taking what amounts to bets on the outcome of the November Congressional elections after a judge refused to block them from doing so. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb in Washington permitted the only legally sanctioned bets on U.S. elections by an American jurisdiction. It enabled, at least temporarily, New York-based Kalshi to offer prediction contracts -- essentially yes-or-no bets -- on which party will win control of the Senate and the House in November. The company and its lawyer did not respond to requests for comment, but within 90 minutes of the judge's ruling, the bets were being advertised on the company's web site. Earlier in the day, the website had said they were "coming soon."
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> It was not clear how long such betting might last; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which last year prohibited the company from offering them, said it would appeal the ruling as quickly as possible. Contrasting his client with foreign companies who take bets from American customers on U.S. elections without U.S. government approval, Roth said Kalshi is trying to do things the right way, under government regulation. "It invested significantly in these markets," he said during Thursday's hearing. "They spent millions of dollars. It would be perverse if all that investment went up in smoke."
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> But Raagnee Beri, an attorney for the commission, said allowing such bets could invite malicious activities designed to influence the outcome of elections and undermine already fragile public confidence in the voting process. "These contracts would give market participants a $100 million incentive to influence the market on the election," she said. "There is a very severe public interest threat." She used the analogy of someone who has taken an investment position in corn commodities. "Somebody puts out misinformation about a drought, that a drought is coming," she said. "That could move the market on the price of corn. The same thing could happen here. The commission is not required to suffer the flood before building a dam."
[1] https://fortune.com/2024/09/12/betting-elections-legal-united-states-2024-congressional-race/
[2] https://apnews.com/article/betting-on-elections-kalshi-gambling-trump-harris-882f1e6e4f434f0e6ac6e5985a5583ce
My how Rome has fallen (Score:2)
Now we turned the elections into another sport for some sleazy gambling house to run betting on. It's not so much the activity itself, but the message this sends. People also bet on rats battling each other to the death.
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let them eat hot dogs and apple pie?
Well no worries there (Score:1, Interesting)
> concerns about potential market manipulation and public trust in the electoral process
The electoral college destroyed any trust in the electoral process in 1824, and the unending series of corrupt ultra-rich presidents getting elected one after the other with zero chance of a regular Joe with good ideas ever making it into office does nothing to restore that trust.
But betting on the congressional elections is boring. A more interesting bet would be whether the MAGA crowd will follow through with their bloodbath promise if their racehorse loses.
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A more interesting bet would be whether the MAGA crowd will follow through with their bloodbath promise if their racehorse loses.
A better bet will be if the convicted felon follows through on his promise [1]to leave the country [newsweek.com] when he loses the election.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-flee-venezuela-loses-election-elon-musk-interview-1938321
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> A more interesting bet would be whether the MAGA crowd will follow through with their bloodbath promise if their racehorse loses.
You are spreading [1]misinformation [factcheck.org], bloodbath was reference to loss of automotive jobs and has nothing to do with actual violence.
[1] https://www.factcheck.org/2024/03/trumps-bloodbath-comment/
Re:Well no worries there (Score:4, Informative)
Bold of you to assume that anything coming out of Trump's mouth has anything to do with what he was just talking about.
Remember how proud he is of his "weave" which his imaginary English professors complimented him on and said they'd never seen anything like it.
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> he unending series of corrupt ultra-rich presidents getting elected one after the other with zero chance of a regular Joe with good ideas ever making it into office
Barack Obama did.
Whether it was 'good ideas' or just charisma certainly is debatable. But he came from nowhere and was the people's choice. The Democratic establishment wanted Hillary that year, and of course they did finally get her nominated in 2016...
Harris is worth about $8m (Score:2)
and for a 60 year old woman in Washington that's pretty low. Biden after decades in Congress barely topped out at $10m. That a particularly well planned and good retirement for somebody that made it to director...
Tim Walz is crazy. He net worth is under $800k. On the other hand [1]he does have a Sega Dreamcast [arstechnica.com] so I think he's ahead of them all.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/09/reported-dreamcast-addict-tim-walz-is-now-an-unofficial-crazy-taxi-character/
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> The electoral college destroyed any trust in the electoral process in 1824
How? None of the 4 candidates had a majority in the EC, and so Congress did exactly what the Constitution directed, and held a [1] contingent election [wikipedia.org]. The system worked exactly as it was designed to.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingent_election#1824_presidential_election
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How? None of the 4 candidates had a majority in the EC, and so Congress did exactly what the Constitution directed, and held a contingent election . The system worked exactly as it was designed to.
Jackson had the majority of EC votes, 99. However, that number didn't meet the numerical majority threshold. As a result, [1]the corrupt bargain [ushistory.org] ensued in the House which gave the election to Adams.
[1] https://www.ushistory.org/us/23d.asp?source=post_page
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> How? None of the 4 candidates had a majority in the EC, and so Congress did exactly what the Constitution directed, and held a contingent election . The system worked exactly as it was designed to.
> Jackson had the majority of EC votes, 99. However, that number didn't meet the numerical majority threshold. As a result, [1]the corrupt bargain [ushistory.org] ensued in the House which gave the election to Adams.
Was it really a "corrupt bargain", though? Jackson had nowhere near enough votes for a majority, and Clay dropped out and threw his support to JQA. It's not unusual for a candidate to drop out and then announce an alliance with another candidate, combining their support. This is exactly what happened in 1824. And Jackson won anyway in the next election.
[1] https://www.ushistory.org/us/23d.asp?source=post_page
Great (Score:1)
Now it finally pays to meddle in the election. Trump will be rich!
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> Now it finally pays to meddle in the election. Trump will be rich!
It's always paid to meddle. WTF do you think the swamp is?
Paging Congressman Don King.. (Score:3)
Who the FUCK was the corrupt asshole who thought THIS was a good idea?!? As if the Pelosi answer to Insider Trading voilations wasn’t bad enough?!?
The FUCK as we doing here folks. Seriously. Allow this at ANY level, and you’ll have famous “candidates” taking a fall just for the fucking payday. . This isn’t how you fix election problems and the Right to Vote. This is how you end it for good. Watch for ulterior motives with this shit.
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This is legal in much of the rest of the western world, and has been for years. Why hasn't it had your predicted effects there? Or is there evidence that it has?
I think that if candidates are willing to throw an election just to get the payday, that's great! That's not the sort of person we want in office anyway.
Another potential good I could see is candidates who put personal money into their campaigns might bet against themselves as a hedge against loss, especially if they are a longshot to win. It
Derivatives market (Score:2)
> It enabled, at least temporarily, New York-based Kalshi to offer prediction contracts -- essentially yes-or-no bets -- on which party will win control of the Senate and the House in November.
This is fundamentally the same as derivatives market where you can place contracts that payout based on the stock market, such as the Dow, going up or down after a certain period, such as next month.
Anyone who thought this would not create feedback and affect the primary market is either lying or delusional. It is common knowledge that the derivatives market create huge influence on the primary stock prices. There had been studies that shown during periods where the derivative market was closed (such as d
Consider it a back-of-the-envelope check (Score:2)
Both sides think the other is cheating during the election. Well, now there's a way to at least begin to tell: if the election results wildly differ from the betting results, we can say - not conclusively but with some authority - that something nefarious is going on.
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I trust the integrity of the current election process much more than a bookie
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That's not how it works with sports - why would it be the way it works with elections?
Two sides (Score:2)
I'm not big on things being 'sacred', but elections in a democratic state should be. They're something very serious, and critically important. They should not be treated like a game, but as a sombre responsibility.
On the other hand, that bridge was crossed and burned long ago. Can it make a significant difference to the current sideshow process? The stock market already effectively bets on the outcome anyway.
Amounts to vote bribery. Project 2025 all on it. (Score:2)
The bookie only has to determine where to put the spread to financially incentivize bettors to vote how they want. Which is probably the point.
Destroying democracy for the sake of a few dollars (Score:3)
The people running this operation are, quite frankly, horrible people. Their profits are measured by the damage done to the electoral process and thus representative democracy as a whole...and when that damage is done, it's the people without wealth or privilege who suffer the most. It always is.
I've worked as a volunteer registrar for 17 years. I register everyone who properly authenticates themselves, regardless of who they are or where they are. I've registered a lot of people that I know are my political adversaries and I've done that because I swore an oath to carry out my duties faithfully. I do this because I think voting is incredibly important and I want it to be available to everyone. (BTW: 17 years and not one fraudulent registration. I'm careful.) And now comes Kalshi, ready and willing to take a wrecking ball to this foundation of democracy...because they can. The opportunities this operation provides for corruption, manipulation, extortion, and coercion are so numerous that it would take a much longer post to catalog all of them. And the sad thing is that I probably won't have to: they'll be news articles soon enough.
Calling all slobs, Calling all slobs. . ... (Score:1)
If you cannot see the point in getting up and getting involved and learning to discipline yourself just for participation's sake....? Politics or sports. Then of course all you can do is bet on some fantasy dream team as you'll always have your losses to blame for the complete breakdown of your physical/mental integrity, then the nation's.....
No matter which candidate you bet on (Score:2)
The country still loses.
I'll pass (Score:2)
When I am convinced that our Country has started taking election security seriously, I'll consider giving a shit about the elections again.
They can start by removing any network connected machine / device from the equation. Physical media is more difficult to manipulate
than its digital counterpart. ( Example: One has an easier time stealing a billion dollars digitially vs carrying off the same amount in $1
bills )
If they insist on keeping digital voting systems, then the software running them needs to be o
few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billions.. (Score:2)
It should be allowed. A few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billions at stake in US Presidential elections.
No way anyone would be able to manipulate the presidential election 'market' who is not already doing so at the much larger scale and with much bigger payoffs or downsides and bigger potential disasters in the making.
It's only the optics which might look bad to gen pop and maybe if US citizens were to start participating in bulk, like tens of millions of them, there could be some bad effects i gues
Re:few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billion (Score:5, Interesting)
I think at heart of the issue is the continued devaluation of the election. Its already viewed like the NFL football season. People are more caught up in picking the team thats going to win more than the policies involved, what a 4yr term will like, and even if that person has 4yrs left in them. In a nutshell people stop voting for a 4yr plan and instead vote as if the day after the election was about as important as the days following the superbowl. Allowing legalized betting is only going to accelerate this demise that much further. More effort needs to be spent on highlighting what its supposed to be. Save the partisan comments for another thread. This sickness is multi-partisan and infects all aspects of society. You need no other proof than headlines announcing how much money a particular campaign raked in. As if donations alone is all that determines a winner. So-and-so is going to win because they raked in $20M just last night. And following that announcement some people will adjust their voting plans because it seems more important to pick the winning horse (now with a betting component) than actually researching the impacts.
Re:few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billion (Score:5, Insightful)
I was wondering what that rapid, thumping, whirring noise was coming from the historic grave yard where some of the founding fathers are buried. Now I know.
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Voters assume that the promised impacts are all lies or won't happen because the other side will filibuster or stack SCOTUS or whatever.
It's definitely got worse lately. The Republicans have dropped all pretence of playing fair, and the Democrats don't seem to be willing to do what is necessary to make things happen.
The best outcome will be the GOP imploding and a more moderate and grown-up Republican Party emerging, with conservative but sensible and pragmatic people in charge. That possibility seems remot
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> with conservative but sensible and pragmatic people in charge
Those are opposite things. Conservatism has never worked. Austerity always brings stagnation. The only way out is through, you can't go back. Especially now that we've destroyed our life support system's ability to self-repair...
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True, I only meant that if the Republicans were more moderate and willing to work with others to get what they want, it would be better for everyone.
The issue on the progressive side is that we getting getting mediocre centrists, who allow the far right to gain power.
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The Democratic Party has been against progressives for decades at this point, and praises conservatives like Joe Manchin instead. Progressives have left the Democratic Party after Bernie Sanders was stabbed in the back too many times.
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Too true. My question about Kamala sending some of her funding down to other candidates would be whether it would be spent boosting or opposing progressives. Haven't heard back yet :P
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> The Democratic Party has been against progressives for decades
In 1972, the Democrats nominated George McGovern, a very progressive candidate, and lost 48 states to Richard Nixon in one of the biggest landslides in history.
Dukakis ran as a liberal and lost in another landslide.
Bill Clinton ran as a centrist but veered to the left after taking office. The Democrats were decimated in the 1994 midterms. Clinton veered back to the right and comfortably won reelection.
You can win with progressives in a conservative country.
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>> with conservative but sensible and pragmatic people in charge
> Those are opposite things. Conservatism has never worked.
[1]Except [wikipedia.org] [2]when it [wikipedia.org] [3] does [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_era
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams
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You literally just cited the Reagan era, literally the time when all the things which were working were fucked over in the name of greater profit for corporations, as a time when austerity worked? Without irony?
I have seen some major dipshits on Slashdot in my time, posting some major dipshit comments, but you win teh prize.
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Yes, Reagan era was a peak of both American power and prosperity and the key reasons Boomers are so financially better off than other generations before or after. Reagan ended the era of [1]70s inflation [investopedia.com] [2]and crime [businessinsider.com]. While there were downsides, on the balance it was significant net positive. Your negative view of that era of prosperity is not widely shared outside of The Communist Manifesto study group.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/1970s-great-inflation.asp
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-used-to-be-a-terrifying-place-photos-2013-7?op=1
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> Austerity always brings stagnation. The only way out is through, you can't go back.
Austerity is a bad idea when the economy is in bad shape, deficit spending for appropriately-targeted stimulus is necessary. But debt can't be unbounded, so austerity is necessary to bring it under control -- meaning that when the economy is strong you need to exercise the discipline to apply austerity to reduce debt relative to GDP. Relying solely on GDP growth is dangerous (and what the US has been doing for decades).
As for the US, right now, our economy has rebounded from COVID and looks to be in good
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> ... able to fix things than Biden has been.
Biden knows he can't fight the money: His own party will turn on him if he tries. It's the reason Harris has thrown-away her idealism. Hopefully her can-do attitude will expose the senators who care more about money. Then, it's in the hands of the voters.
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> It's the reason Harris has thrown-away her idealism.
Harris never was the progressive idealist she cosplayed in 2019. That was an attempt to survive a left-charging primary.
Re: few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billio (Score:1)
Ya true, devaluation of elections is a big problem all over the world. And some sort of extreme divisiveness where normal people (including me) just hate the other side and think it's the end of the world !
Probably due to social media.
15 years back my ex boss had once explained very nicely that all this free / zero cost to publish and consume information thing is like soup kitchens with free food - it's good only for the poor and down on their luck people and not something we should aspire the entire countr
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> People are more caught up in picking the team thats going to win more than the policies involved
To a large degree politics were always about soundbites, but it got much worse after 2016. In the current environment of hyper partisan journalism and media, where even fact checkers are partisan, "picking a team" is about the only feasible low-effort way to decide. You no longer have an option to tune [1]into CBS Evening News [wikipedia.org] and have a reasonable chance of becoming informed.
For example, during the debate Harris accused Trump of calling "people carrying tiki torches spewing antisemitic hate" fine people. Th
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite
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> Allowing legalized betting ...
Well, throwing more money into US politics will do more damage, you have good reason to be worried. Although you don't grasp the reality, it is already a problem.
> ... is going to win ...
Excepting an old-fashioned dishonest propaganda campaign (See: Joe McCarthy. See: GOP 1991 campaign), the biggest spender does win: US elections have been bought, several times.
Trump is the exception: He wants everyone else to promote his campaign: It's why he travels so much, it's a cheaper way of getting people's attention, and it self-sel
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> I think at heart of the issue is the continued devaluation of the election. Its already viewed like the NFL football season.
One person's "devaluation" is another person's value. Here in Canada I barely pay attention to our elections. The USA keeps me invested. Sure, it's a circus. But if a bunch of lying clowns are going to debate about how to screw us over in their own different ways, I'd at least like it to be entertaining.
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There is actually a downside to allow this. It may make some people more inclined to perpetrate voter fraud for monetary gain. And if that happens it will further erode trust in the voting system and an increase in hysteria about "large scale voter fraud", neither is good for democracy.
An upside is that it's possible that more people will go vote.
It should be noted that this type of betting has gone on for a very very long time even though it isn't legal so I don't know how much a legal alternative will aff
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I could be wrong, but I believe that the downside is insignificant. I currently see U.S. elections as a fraud already, in that there are only 2 alternatives that make any difference, and there isn't much difference between those two alternatives. It is very much along the line of voting which wolf will eat us sheep for dinner, and betting on it, even if it encourages voting fraud won't make much difference to when I get eaten for dinner.
Re: few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billio (Score:1)
IMHO we should make voting compulsory and check IDs / citizenship etc properly.
And have a 5 year cooling off period for new citizens/immigrants before they can vote.
That should make it more credible even if few people are unable to vote due to documentation problems or such.
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Once you are a citizen you are a citizen with all the rights and obligations that carry, there is no room in the law or the constitution to have citizens that can can't vote (with caveats like being a felon, residency requirements etc, see [1]https://www.justice.gov/d9/202... [justice.gov], as I understand it.
And there is already a "probation period", it's the time it takes before someone gets their citizenship granted through various forms of naturalization.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-01/voting_with_a_criminal_conviction_7.6.23.pdf
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> Once you are a citizen you are a citizen with all the rights and obligations that carry, there is no room in the law or the constitution to have citizens that can can't vote (with caveats like being a felon, residency requirements etc, see [1]https://www.justice.gov/d9/202... [justice.gov], as I understand it.
> And there is already a "probation period", it's the time it takes before someone gets their citizenship granted through various forms of naturalization.
This. Citizenship is the end of the road, not the beginning. If you're going for citizenship in a country, outside of some very rare circumstances* you've already been living and working in that country for some time. Most countries have a stage between being migrant (I.E. on a visa) and being a citizen, usually called something along the lines of Permanent Residency or Settled Status. Even asylum seekers who are granted asylum are put onto a visa, not immediately given settled status.
*9 times out of 10
[1] https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-01/voting_with_a_criminal_conviction_7.6.23.pdf
Re:few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billion (Score:5, Informative)
> I currently see U.S. elections as a fraud already, in that there are only 2 alternatives that make any difference, and there isn't much difference between those two alternatives.
[1]"One common tactic of concern trolls is the "a plague on both your houses" approach, where the concern troll tries to convince people that both sides of the ideological divide are just as bad as each other" [rationalwiki.org]
[1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Concern_troll
Re:few $ 100 Mn is nothing compared to the billion (Score:5, Informative)
And if that happens it will further erode trust in the voting system and an increase in hysteria about "large scale voter fraud", neither is good for democracy.
The only ones who don't trust the voting system are the [1]very [newsweek.com] [2]ones [cnn.com] [3]committing [cbsnews.com] the [4]fraud [go.com]. They're also the same ones making it as difficult as possible for "those" people to vote and want to raise the voting age to 25 because they're getting their asses spanked by the 18 - 20 age group.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/nevada-man-who-claimed-someone-voted-his-dead-wife-charged-voter-fraud-1641477
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/03/politics/pennsylvania-probation-illegal-ballot-trump-2020/index.html
[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/voter-fraud-colorado-springs-sarilu-sosa-sanchez/
[4] https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-arrested-wifes-murder-now-accused-voting-trump/story?id=77692708
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Actually am sure there will eventually be cases by the well informed or wealthy to make the max bet in a race and either release some major news that they know will effect the race in a (winning manner for them) way or spend a bunch of money on a suitable PAC (but still lesser amount then they can win) to make sure that their bet works out.
Wonder how long it will be before this happens. Maybe will make the company go bankrupt soon.
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There is actually a downside to allow this. It may make some people more inclined to perpetrate voter fraud
Perhaps so, But I would say that is something for congress to make a rule on if it should be prohibited, Not the CFTC. And there are plenty of financial motivations for different people to favor different election outcomes.
May well be there should be elections rules that no government officials or employees involved in elections or election facilities or their families can deal in elections futures
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> The bigger question Is for voters; If many people bet on these... Do they "bet" on the candidate they want to win, Or do they Bet on the candidate who they Expect to have the bigger chance of winning (And then possibly change their vote?) ?
> Or do People look at the Odds and bet for the candidate they personally think the global market has underestimated? And then possibly change their vote to whichever candidate they betted on.
You're right and damned if I or anyone else actually know. What I know is that we can count on people trying to find some way to game it.