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

Oh man, I thought from the headline that it was going to be about a new prediction wager on the site about whether the manipulator had used a hair dryer or lighter.

That would have been perfect.

Whoever did that deserves a few years in prison. Normally I'm not too much of a friend of draconian BS - but accurate reports of temperature, air pressure and wind speed are incredibly important for the safety of air travel.

It's bad enough when such systems fail due to whatever sort of issue, but the last thing aviation needs is people intentionally blowing holes into the swiss cheese security model -.-

I don't understand why people would want to bet on such an easily gamed outcome. I can understand that some people are compulsive gamblers, but it seems such a foolish thing to bet on. To me, it'd be like betting with someone about how many fingers they're going to hold up.

People sometimes do drastic things when they experience large gambling losses. They might embezzle, rob, scam, be unable to pay rent or debts. It has a significant effect on people who are not directly involved in gambling.

Enough people do care about pro sports that someone who doesn't still needs to worry about being caught in a riot should something like this happen. (they already worry about riots for real wins/losses)

The technical term is that you must have an “insurable interest” in what you insure. Both of your examples are people protecting their insurable interest. Ownership is the most common insurable interest, but there are many other ways to have one.

This is done because the insurance company wants you to prefer that the covered event doesn’t happen, which avoids some conflicts of interest.

These prediction market events don’t have the usual insurance interests involved.

To perhaps be a bit more pendantic.

You're not allowed to take out life insurance on someone you don't know or have a relationship (business or otherwise) with.

Life insurance on a business partner works. Life insurance on your spouse as well.

Life insurance on the leader of a random country? Unlikely

No no I appreciate the pedantry, thank you for the correction

> I'm not sure where this false premise started but alot of people believe it.

It being the driving plot behind Double Indemnity probably started it. I always thought it was true until your comment, too.

Yeah, you are being pedantic. The clear meaning is that you're not just allowed to insure arbitrary properties.

If you wanted to correct a misconception, you should provide a better, more complete understanding, not just express frustration about a misconception that doesn't even exist outside of an uncharitable reading.

In this case, that means refining the point to the more accurate model, that you need an insurable interest -- i.e. reason you don't want the event to happen, even knowing you'd get a payout[1]. Your counterexamples only work as such because that exists![2] If you want to fix all the people who don't have your superior understanding, that would have been a great way to help them out.

>I'm not sure where this false premise started but alot of people believe it.

It exists because it's approximately true: you can't get insurance on 99.99999% of buildings in the world because you have no insurable interest in them. And any time someone could correct that false premise, they probably just complain rather than providing the complete understanding -- exactly the choice you just made here.

[1] IMO, this is the natural dividing line between gambling and insurance https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13916088

[2] Edit: And in your building collateral example, the policy would prevent you from double dipping -- getting both the building and the full payout.

> Kalshi refused to pay out

To be clear they had explicitly written in the contract from the start that death didn't count. And they paid out the full amount - just not to the same betters they would have if he had left office alive.

There are a lot of things short of death that we don't want to encourage either. There is a huge grey zone here that I frankly don't want to entrust to private entities.

> Well, you are privately allowed to bet on whatever you like with another individual.

What jurisdiction are we painting with that broad brush? This is far from universally true, even in the US.

Nope. "We're just an intermediary between people" is a 100+ year old yarn that casinos and bookies have been trying to spin. If you're presenting a point of entry to a betting line and taking a cut, congrats, you're the house. Doesn't matter if you adjust the betting line manually based on intuition or algorithmically based on betting volume. Sometimes it doesn't get enforced because of corruption, but if this was the case, then why aren't there tons of independent unregulated poker casinos where players just play against each other? If you facilitate and take a cut, you're the house.

What the hell are you talking about? You are absolutely not allowed to bet on whatever you'd like with another individual. Depending on what you're betting on (for example, the price of a stock or the throw of a card), it falls under varying different regimes. This is highly regulated and has been for most of the whole of human history.

Yes, there are de minimis exceptions. Your office NCAA pool, for example, is often legal, but it has nothing to do with what we're talking about and is also irrelevant to a business facilitating it via 18 U.S.C. § 1955.

That "facilitating" argument didn't work out for Silk Road.

To me this is technicality.

A bet is a bet, whether it's against the house or other people it's a bet.

Can you name the individuals you are betting with on Polymarket? Can they name you?

Funny how average HNer is opposing Flock cameras that solve real crimes by covering it up as a "freedom" yet completely fine regulating contracts with hypothetical incentives.

It's also illegal to pay someone to do murder or arson, which is easy to obfuscate as an "event contract".

There's many true crime cases where the spouse took out multiple life insurance policies then did the killing to earn money. It's a bounty. We should care about the effect in practice.

They can already do this easily with the stock market.

Usually though people's pay/power directly correlates with how badly they can screw the company if they go (legally) rogue.

But anyone can get a job at XYZ, buy puts, and go and set the factory on fire the next day. Betting markets don't change the fact that you'll be arrested, except that you'll be arrested for a few thousand dollars rather than whatever you can squeeze out of options.

Not fools, these bets are usually very close to a fair market price. But people are not willing to wager millions of dollars on the temperature registered in a certain place at a certain time. Or on if hezbollah missiles impact Israel land or whatever.

So, what you're discussing is basically, whales are going to be the bettors and it sucks that there'll always be a bunch of marks but: No ones going to stop the whales because there'll always be suckers.

Welcome to the grift economy, take a number.

As long as he didn't place any bets, I think what he did is totally fine.

If I find out my friends placed bets on whether I'll say X tomorrow, I'm not obligated to act as if I didn't know.

Downvotes on HN is always fascinating. Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/coinbase-ceo-s-bizar...

Yeah, they unironically just attacked a strawman and sat of their laurels

They can take any position they want and do whatever they want, the point is that these oddball markets are very thin so there just isn't much money there to harvest. You can only bet $50M at your chosen risk if you can find enough people to take the other side, and these markets simply don't have many participants betting much money.

Think of it like kids betting pennies what subject the teacher will open with the next day. The teacher doesn't care about winning $0.89, but the kids do.

Purpose and meaning are ultimately subjective.

Which is another reason why they should be regulated as a gambling operation. It’s akin to odds making.

It is marketing money so it is not even for arbitrage. And you don't need to provide all the liquidity. Just enough to tilt the result.

Ludopaths often try to put on the same level national lotteries with sports betting and other means of information based betting.

Not a fan of lottery myself, but at least it's just some random numbers drawn from a drum. There is hardly any dark pattern or illegal incentive there. It is just you against Thomas Bayes.

>Is this intended to imply that Spain has particularly high levels of sports betting

La Quiniela, a lottery based on soccer matches' results. Every middle aged man filled some weekly forms (win for locals/draw/win for foreigners) as if it was a religion. If you matched 14 from 15 results (much better with 15), you could get a big prize. Also, Jai Alai matches on the North of Spain had huge bets on results too.

Younger millenials and Gen-Zers will just play on RETA which is kinda the same as La Quiniela but online.

From their FAQ on the front page.

> Play money means it's much easier for anyone anywhere in the world to get started and try out forecasting without any risk. It also means there's more freedom to create and bet on any type of question.

Their investors/lawyers probably did not want to back the risk using real currency adds.

Its just stochastic terrorism is the thing. Betting markets on a a negative outcome are ginning up a big "you could make money if the bad thing actually happens" and over enough scale you'll get that idea into the head of someone who concludes they should try and make it happen.

This is the same reason it is generally illegal to make public statements lamenting that someone hasn't killed a person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur...

The DF clearly states that there cannot be contracts on topics of war, terrorism, assassination, gaming and unlawful activity and in general anything that:

- incentivize harmful acts - create manipulation risks - are "contrary to the public interest"

So, all these contracts on the topics of US attacks, sports, whether California will burn due to fires, openly violate it.

But CFTC's head has publicly stated that they won't act on them.

Pushing it to black markets takes away the possibility of heavy regulation (which absolutely should be in place), and stigmatises victims (gamblers), making it harder to come clean to friends and family. I agree with your assesment that no one should even start to gamble, I just doubt that declaring it illegal will achieve that.

For some reason, American companies have a really hard time following existing laws and regulations here. AirBnb and Uber both had the same approach of basically saying "Oops we didn't know" until the law (and others) cracked down on them, I'm sure someone could find older examples too, and surely tons of examples outside of Spain too.

What? Maybe you visited a particularly casino-heavy area, but in general there aren't many casinos in Spain. In many regions (e.g. mine) they're restricted to one per province. My city (250K population in the core, metropolitan area about 500K) has one. Madrid (6M metropolitan area) has four, Barcelona (5M) has one.

Sports betting places on the other hand have multiplied like fungi in the last two decades, unfortunately.

Kalshi supposedly does not pay out if a death is involved

https://xcancel.com/mansourtarek_/status/2029996077554815268

Not sure if Polymarket does the same. Also not sure if I really trust these people to be the arbiter of morality and adhere to their own rules when it doesn't benefit them.

Sure but so does any political betting.

Or that JD Vance will be president on x date.

> One is that the markets leak classified information (which is the entire point of the market and it should be a national security no brainer to close it for that reason alone)

It's not at all obvious that leaks of classified information are per se detrimental to _actual_ national security.

It’s worse.

There are the people from the kill command who bet on what they are ordered to do.

There could even be a bet by someone with direct influence on the government who convinces them to do it to make some money.

…bounty hunting?

The other side of that argument could be something like: "Dude, Khomeini better not be killed, it'd suck for me, an average iranian dude. I'd probably bet he dies so I can hedge my personal financial wellbeing for that case"

Counterargument: Any "specific" wording of gambling would have condemned this activity. On average, vagueness in law generates more loopholes for corporate criminals to hide behind than it generates discretion for judges and juries to rule against them.

You have an US-centric (an really naive) view of the judicial systems of the world. In many countries the judges have to follow the exact letter of the law. In others, this "spirit of the law" excuse makes way for enabling systemic corruption.

Agreed, and also more and more emphasis on industries that try to make money off of moving money (gambling, trading etc.), as oppposed actaully creating value is probably also a contributing factor.

250 years is the average empire's age of death

And it is regulated in many (most?) other countries and requires a licence to be a bookmaker. Hence the ban

Bet it's not a gambling licence though, and not under the same restrictions.

some Cloudflare IPs, not every IP, nor does 20% of what you typically do on the internet go away during these few hours.

Those companies chose to accept cloudflare downtime and blocking as their own downtime.

I think the term "market" comes from the fact that it uses stock market–like pricing and allows you to sell your bets at any time. Ie. you buy "shares" of some outcome for 0.3$ if the probability is 30%, and then if the probability at any point goes to 50%, you can sell the "shares" for 0.5$ each.

(Which of course doesn't make it any better or less of a casino, this is just to say that the word market didn't come from nowhere)

> they are not being sold by people.

I think you might be mistaken about how Polymarket works. They are indeed only a platform operator; all trades are directly between participants.

For commodities futures, sure. But what about e.g. index futures or weather futures?

I don't think it's as easy to manipulate as you say.

Again, assuming separation of powers: In a democracy, ministries are part of the executive branch. Their role is to follow and implement the law, not to judge violations.

If a law is violated, then a judge, and not a ministry, should be the one to enforce it.

When an administrative body blocks access to a service without prior judicial oversight, it blurs the line between the executive and the judiciary. And since separation of powers is a key component of any democracy, this raises legitimate concerns about the quality of democratic checks and balances.

Just to be clear: I’m not arguing that unlicensed online gambling sites should remain accessible. The issue is how the restriction is carried out, and whether it respects democratic principles and institutional roles.

>not gambling due to insider information.

I can't make this argument work at all. Gambling with some cheating is still gambling.

> Classifying these services as gambling means they become a source of tax revenue for nation states

I mean Spain blocked these markets for now, to investigate how to deal with them, I don't think it's for sure they'll be classified as gambling and allowed, might very well be outlawed. Probably parent got confused you said "The whole world will eventually do the same" (about blocking/banning) but then seemingly you thought these were "classified as gambling" already.

Interesting, added my ISP to my previous comment (Vodafone). Do you have a lot of stuff you use daily that goes away during the games? Personally the only thing that seems to stop working is Docker Hub, everything else seems OK, trying to figure out if it's just my ISP that is lenient or what's going on...

Also, most of Spain can walk to a functioning casino which will be more than willing to take all sorts of odd prop bets.

Not sure how you want me to respond to that. Are you getting that from a feel of yours or some statistical analysis of familiarity with polymarket in Spain? I don't think it matters much anyway, I bet most human beings don't know what polymarket is. But still, you think it warrants a conspiracy? To what end? None of this makes much sense to me.

By that logic market makers in the stock market are basically like a casino too. No one is of course guaranteed to win in anything but at least the stock market doesn't ban you for making too much money like a casino does.

Ok, who are insiders for these bets:

* What price will Bitcoin hit in May?

* SpaceX IPO closing market cap above ___ ?

* Highest temperature in Amsterdam on May 26?

* Presidential Election Winner 2028

spain also blocks cloudflare for copyright infringement

A thought experiment: how would you feel about betting on a market that is an the outcome of a medical procedure? On a negative outcome? On a market for a negative outcome of your own procedure?

You lived all your life without these evil companies. Life will go on when they are banished. I don't think you will miss "unusually high quality predictions" after a week.

What predictions? Why is it useful to know what the odds are for Trump to the word “postage stamp” in a specific speech?

Why are the sports odds useful? Word mention market and sports market are the majority of bets after all. Seems like >90% of wagers are useless noise.

Name 7 recent useful ones you actioned based on, one for each day of the last week. I’m very curious what those may be that you use it daily.

When I looked a the site and checked out a few non sport/word wagers, the actual bets were pretty unhelpful because while their summary sounded potentially informative the actual fine print showed that a weirdly constrained timeline of a specific thing was the actual deciding factor, making them useless.

Show me the insider trading on polymarket that is providing you with this crucial info. Show it to me now.

I don't think you'd find anyone arguing that the lottery isn't gambling, so I'm not sure what argument you're trying to make here.

A casino is by definition a house that takes rake and is not the government or one of its subsidiaries ...

That's not collateral, that's the thing being wagered.

I think it's fine. Here renting (or teaching) light sails (light catamaran) needs a different license than renting (or teaching) any sail cruiser, including catamarans, despite being basically the same object (boats with sails). Feels that the small differences are enough to justify a different regime.

There are all sorts of different regulatory systems for all sorts of slightly different kinds of things.