[jychang]

Nope, "just placing a bet" is still illegal if you’re trading on material non-public information (MNPI). Even if you don’t disclose anything, U.S. regulators can treat a prediction-market wager as a derivatives trade made with misappropriated confidential info.

Prediction-market contracts are either CFTC or SEC territory. Many "event contracts" are regulated as swaps (CFTC). If a contract references a single security/issuer, then it falls under security-based swap rules (SEC). Either way, trading them with MNPI risks liability under the applicable anti-fraud rules. (CFTC Rule 180.1 is guided by SEC 10b-5 case law on misappropriation.)

The CFTC uses the misappropriation theory: trading while breaching a duty to keep information confidential is prohibited, even if you never "tip" anyone. They’ve brought cases on this theory. CFTC enforcement and guidance explicitly cite misappropriation cases (Ruggles 2016, Motazedi 2015, EOX, etc) as "insider trading" analogs for non stock trading.

> They still called it a market.

I'm saying you can pivot your hypothetical company to a website-that-pays-for-news-like-TMZ. Last time I checked, they don't call TMZ a market.