[StanislavPetrov]

>just because you choose to assign it some other emotional value doesn't change that the core purpose is illegal

The bigger question here is, why is it illegal? Most rational adults understand that the arbitrary decision to ban adults from "gambling" their own money in certain ways, while promoting gambling in other ways is absolutely ridiculous. Here in New York I can today bet on sports and horse racing from my phone or my computer. I am pilloried with ads to play lotto - perhaps the worst form of gambling with only a 50% return on investment in most games - by the state itself! But it is illegal for me to gamble on a skill-based game like poker or predict-it. It reeks of the authoritarian hypocrisy that is the defining feature of our government on every level.

[phpisthebest]

Sadly I think in modern society we have shifted from having to justify why something should be illegal, and today for many the default assumption is that all activity should be illegal and one should need to justify the value, subjective "goodness", or utility of an activity, business, device, etc for it is be ruled "legal"

>by the state itself! But it is illegal for me to gamble on a skill-based game like poker or predict-it

I think you have hit on the root cause, poker and other games of skill is harder for the government to inject themselves into it, harder to control the odds and revenue (like lottery), etc.

[mateo411]

>I think you have hit on the root cause, poker and other games of skill is harder for the government to inject themselves into it, harder to control the odds and revenue (like lottery), etc.

I don't think so. You can just grant a gaming license for a card room. In order to maintain the gaming license the establishment has to pay a yearly licensing fee to the government. That seems pretty straightforward.

[JohnHaugeland]

they did, in fact, very clearly justify why this should be illegal.

[phpisthebest]

I read the CFTC revocation letter, they do not justify anything unless you have a very loose definition of justify

their letter says "we had X exceptions, we say you failed" That is not justification, that is just accusation. Nothing in the 2 page note provides any actual justification.

[JohnHaugeland]

> I read the CFTC revocation letter, they do not justify anything unless you have a very loose definition of justify

The CFTC letter says "we made an agreement eight years ago and you never honored it."

If you want the justification, read the original agreement, not the "you broke your promise, no more special privileges for you" notice.

.

> their letter says "we had X exceptions, we say you failed" That is not justification

That's correct. You looked in the wrong place. Punishment for failing to honor an agreement is not, generally, where people explain the purpose of the agreement.

.

> Nothing in the 2 page note provides any actual justification.

That's correct. You looked in the wrong place.

[phpisthebest]

The original no-action letter offers no justification either, just a series of edicts by the regulators and a comparison to a previous small market.

They start from the assumption that their regulations are good, correct and need, they offer no justifications on why the limits or guidelines are imposed or why it should be regulated at all.

Nothing in any of the letters has anything resembling justification, at best the revocation letter is circular logic citing the no action letter but in neither is anything justified

[JohnHaugeland]

> The original no-action letter offers no justification either,

This is also not the correct place to look.

The original no-action letter is after the discussion was had, and everyone was already on the same page, so of course that wouldn't be the place where they explained their premise.

Twice in a row you've looked in a place nobody would ever put it, and said "well it's not there, so I guess nobody ever explained it."

This conversation holds no value to me. If you choose to be unable to find this wholly documented thing, so be it.

.

> Nothing in any of the letters has anything resembling justification

You've only looked in two places for an explanation, and they're both after the decision, where an explanation would never be.

Once this could be excused as a simple mistake, but you circled back around and did it again with a bright light already shone on the mistake.

Good luck to you.

[JohnHaugeland]

> The bigger question here is, why is it illegal?

So to be clear, you're asking why unregulated online gambling is illegal?

Because that's something you can look up, you know.

.

> Most rational adults

Rational adults are what an internet economist says when they don't want to deal with the real world.

It's like when a physicist says "assume a cuboid cow three feet on an edge."

No, I don't think that I will.

Your attempt to ignore the hundreds of years of law and sociology that underpin this well examined decision with a few fly by the seat guesses about "rational adults" are not actually very compelling.

I find that people on HN frequently fail to understand that the law is a carefully crafted work by tens of thousands of professionals over centuries, that they almost cannot actually upgrade with a hot take.

.

> Here in New York I can today bet on sports and horse racing from my phone or my computer.

Hooray for you.

Maybe if you'd like to look into it, you could learn about the New York gambling regulations, and why they don't fit this institution, and why this institution went to the CFTC for an exception.

After that, maybe you can read the CFTC decision, where they said "we gave them a special exception if they followed some rules, and they didn't follow those rules."

When you're done with that, possibly you could explain to me how what you just said was in any way related to what's happening.

.

> But it is illegal for me to gamble on a skill-based game like poker

Er, no, it's not. Also, poker is not skill based. You may be surprised to learn that the ordering of the deck is random.

Yes, I know people all over the HN thread are claiming that there's a legal decision based on whether it's skill or chance based in flight, that came down to "it's skill."

I look forward to you citing that decision, because it isn't real. I expect you to attempt to cite Jack Weinstein's 2012 Brooklyn decision. I expect you to cite the New York Times article claiming that a circuit judge found that poker was a game of skill, not chance.

Of course, the Times' coverage quality has been in decline for a very long time.

At the end of that article, you will notice that it says "but the judge put off the decision." You'll notice the article was never updated.

So then you look up the decision. And gee, what do you know? It says that poker is, as is obvious, a game of chance. So do statistical analyses: fewer than 10% of 4 player 5 card draw hands can be changed win-vs-lose by player behavior. Most hands, what you drew is generally whether you win or lose.

.

> I am pilloried with ads to play lotto - perhaps the worst form of gambling

It's not gambling if it's not for money, friend.

The ads are playing an ugly game with definitions, and sooner or later they're going to get sued out of existence.

They sell you things that affect your win rates, but you don't actually pay to play, and so under the 1950s law which wasn't written with this in mind, technically it isn't gambling, because even though you can spend money, and even though you can win money, you didn't spend money for the chance to win money.

Their (legally false) argument is that it's like a chess tournament with a prize but no entry fee, which charges for food and refreshments. You can win money, they claim, without spending a dollar, and you only spend money for related enjoyment while you're there.

It's an absurd and false premise, but nobody has bothered to hunt them yet.

Now that Unity is merging with one of the worst malware offenders in the ad market, I kind of expect this to change.

.

"Most rational adults understand that the arbitrary decision to ban adults from X in certain ways, while promoting X in other ways is absolutely ridiculous."

what you just said was "if someone else can commit crime, i should be able to too."

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> But it is illegal for me to gamble on a skill-based game like poker or predict-it.

let's just come back to this again.

much like poker is (obviously!) not a game of skill, neither is predict-it.

it's not clear to me what you think "game of skill" means under the law. it doesn't mean "a game that someone can be good at."

a game of skill, under the law, is a game where you have all the information and every choice made is fully under the control of one of the two players.

there was a 15 year stretch where people weren't sure if chess was a game of skill because you flip a coin to see who goes first, and chess has a significant first player advantage.

if a single coin flip before any choices are made means it's potentially not a game of skill, i don't see how you could possibly hold that predicting the future, or poker, are. it seems to me like you're just repeating the phrase because you've heard it, and you don't really know what it means.

one of the problems with attempting to argue the law without taking the time to learn the history is that it very frequently doesn't obey the rules that a casual observer might expect.

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> It reeks of the authoritarian hypocrisy that is the defining feature of our government on every level.

"it's authoritarian hypocrisy that i can't use an unregulated gambling website which failed for eight years to follow the agreement that it made with the government"

lol.

[phpisthebest]

The number of logical fallacies at play are impressive, however I would like to address a couple of points

>>I find that people on HN frequently fail to understand that the law is a carefully crafted work by tens of thousands of professionals over centuries, that they almost cannot actually upgrade with a hot take.

Seems like you have a rather rose colored view, and fall into a Fallacy Of Expertise to believe that because the law was "crafted" over many years by "professionals" that is somehow makes it infallible, or correct, or anything other than what is is in reality.

Which in reality the law is a very flawed patchwork reactionary policies, regulations, rulings, and statutes all crafted by imperfect people many of which did not and do not have "the best interests" of the public in mind when they crafted them, instead have personal power, ego, or personal wealth at the center of their rational for invoking the regulation, ruling or statute into existence

I find it concerning that one would have such reverence for a clearly flawed, abusive, and often unethical institution such as "the law", there is nothing more unjust than the laws the come from "do-gooders" steeped false philanthropy attempting to tell us all what is best for us... What ever the noble origins (if there ever was any) in "the law" it has clearly been perverted by greed, ego, power, and false philanthropy

>"it's authoritarian hypocrisy that i can't use an unregulated gambling website which failed for eight years to follow the agreement that it made with the government"

It is authoritarian that one would need to seek permission from the government to run a website like PredictIT in the first place.

[JohnHaugeland]

> The number of logical fallacies at play are impressive

Stephen Bond says it better than I can: https://laurencetennant.com/bonds/bdksucks.html

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> Seems like you have a rather rose colored view

Sorry, no, the law isn't my "view," it's just the law.

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> and fall into a Fallacy Of Expertise to believe that because the law was "crafted" over many years by "professionals" that is somehow makes it infallible

I didn't say anything like this. I'm not sure why you think I did.

What I actually said was "people with no legal education who didn't even look up the original design aren't likely to understand things well enough to improve it."

People with actual legal educations who understand the design, of course, can. We make improvements every day.

.

> I find it concerning that one would have such reverence for a clearly flawed, abusive, and often unethical institution such as "the law"

I don't have any such reverence. You're criticizing things I never said and which do not correctly model my viewpoint.

I said "you guys didn't even read what this is about, why do you think you're improving it" and somehow from that you heard "the people who wrote this are perfect and flawless."

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> there is nothing more unjust than the laws the come from "do-gooders" steeped false philanthropy

(blinks)

What?

These laws don't come from philanthropy. They mostly come from punishing casinos for cheating people.

Nobody said anything about noble do-gooders or philanthropy.

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> It is authoritarian that one would need to seek permission from the government to run a website like PredictIT in the first place.

Well, no, that's ... that's just what government does, is make rules.

[phpisthebest]

>Well, no, that's ... that's just what government does, is make rules.

This right here highlights the core of the issue, this is exactly whey authoritarians like yourself, and non-authoritarians like myself have a hard time communicating

You can not fathom why anyone would question government authority, and I can not fathom why anyone would not question government authority.

Saying "that's just what government does, is make rules. " is an authoritarian position as well

To non-authoritarians, government authority has limits, its ability to "make rules" is narrowly defined to a very very limited scope.

To non-authoritarians the law should be simply the collective organization of individual rights, and the law shall have no authority beyond that which the individual would otherwise have the authority, the government is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do.

To non-authoritarians any law, regulation, or purpose of government that creeps beyond that is unethical.

>>People with actual legal educations who understand the design, of course, can. We make improvements every day.

This presumes that the original design is desirable and something that should be preserved, it also presumes that there was an "original design" and that everyone that has meddled in the law since has taken the "original design" to heart and faithfully applied that to all future changes, both are provably and demonstrably false assumptions especially in the context of the US legal system which is been fundamentally altered from the original design to no longer have any real connection to that original design

>These laws don't come from philanthropy

Almost all regulatory agencies and the regulations they produce are done so under the premise of philanthropy. I fail to see how these regulations are any different.

[JoshCole]

He writes: "it's authoritarian hypocrisy that i can't use an unregulated gambling website which failed for eight years to follow the agreement that it made with the government".

You didn't write this, but he quotes around it. We know that he knows that you didn't write this. He quotes the text he paraphrases. So what follows is now his understanding of you.

I want to draw attention to one part of the text. He uses a lower-case "i" rather than an upper-case "I". This means that in his understanding he feels two things about you: 1. You are less than a full human. 2. You are too stupid to spell correctly. Both of these things are contradicted by your own writing. It is clearly visible that you tend to spell things correctly and that you have a sense of self. No one reasonable would contest these things. Which means John isn't being reasonable.

Is it any wonder then that in his next word, he laughs at his caricature of you? No amount of intellect on your part will be capable of persuading him. You are not an intellect to him. You are a thing to laugh at. He already distorts your points in order to allow himself the liberty of attacking his fantasy of your idiocy. Perchance lets say you make the wisest point possible. Something so beautiful that God himself would weep for the brilliance of it. All just men who see it would smile. Ballrooms of people who heard it would stand and clap. We have a good idea of how it is that John would respond to such insight. He would quote his version of you. Then he would laugh at the "it".

[JohnHaugeland]

You seem to be mass replying to everything I've said

I would like to stop interacting with you, because you announced to a third party that I thought they were subhuman over a lower case letter, and won't stop telling me about your religion

Please stop canvassing me now

[JohnHaugeland]

> authoritarians like yourself

Oh jeez, man. If you've gotten to the point of accusing someone of being authoritarian because they said "I don't think the government's going to change the laws because you said you wanted something on social media," then I guess I just don't know what to tell you.

In my eyes, that's right up there with telling people they're fascist for supporting vaccines, or communist for wanting health care reform, or whatever. That just isn't what that word means, and making political insults over relatively mild statements kind of seems extremist and maybe a little confused. In my opinion, that's "it must be a rough life" territory.

I'm a member of the ACLU. I have a hard time understanding what would be more anti-authority, in an effective way, personally. The only reason I'm not calling this "the most confusing of mis-reads" is that the other person told you that I think you're sub-human because I didn't capitalize a single letter during a typo, which I will treasure for weeks, until I forget about it because it'll eventually stop being funny.

C'mon. It's really not "authoritarian" to say "I don't think that'll work."

I feel like all I really said was "the people in power don't change their rules over social media comments," and that what government does is make rules, which they do (most of them are called laws, regulations, or compacts, or treaties, or whatever. We should all probably still be able to sing that School House Rock song, no?)

.

> Almost all regulatory agencies and the regulations they produce are done so under the premise of philanthropy.

When I think of philanthropy, I think of people gifting resources, usually money, to one another, either to help in an emergency, to get their name put on a building, or to get tax credits by supporting the arts, or something like that.

When I think of regulatory agencies, I think of places like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Health, the Federal Communications Commission, and so on.

I grant you, some of them are philanthropic. The National Science Foundation, by example, or ARPA/DARPA, or the Farm Credit Administration. Maybe even the US Army Corps of Engineers.

But. Almost all? I don't feel like the National Transportation Safety Board is philanthropic, or the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, or the Office of Personnel Management, or the National Labor Relations Board, or the FDIC, or the Maritime Commission, or the Department of Labor, or the Office of the Federal Register

By example, regulations.gov lists 43 partner agencies here. That's obviously far from all regulatory agencies - that wouldn't even be one in each state, and every state in the union has a Department of Mines - but still, it's a decent sampling of the big ones. https://www.regulations.gov/agencies

Obviously it's open to debate, but I would personally identify four of those as philanthropic (AID, CNCS, EIB, NSF) and six more as partly philanthropic (DOC, DOL, ED, HUD, SBA, USDA). Whereas our opinions might differ, I'm sure you might agree that my opinion of 10 of 43 wouldn't fit the phrasing "almost all," at least?

[samatman]

No one will read your tedious screed about the delicious taste of the hobnailed boot.

[JohnHaugeland]

Nobody said anything about the flavor of boots.

I wonder if you realize the source of that phrase. That would be quite a remarkable reference if you made it on purpose.

A screed is a long discourse between two people - typically 20+ pages, whereas this was about a quarter of one - which is taken from a larger work. This isn't a screed, although people who learn from the Google robot-written definition might think that it is.

If you didn't read, it's not clear why you replied. Good day.