[stinkbeetle]

Is this really true? What is the evidence that Trump succeeded in money laundering, where is the dirty money coming from in these particular bets, and how do you propose the polymarket betting mechanism is able to clean the money?

[arcastroe]

> how do you propose the polymarket betting mechanism is able to clean the money?

I would assume that dirty money (from dirty wallets) is placed on the "losing side" of the bet. And clean accounts take the "winning side" of the bets.

[stinkbeetle]

But you have wallets in and wallets out. It's electronic.

You can't just sell yourself something with full electronic paper trail and call that money laundering!

[Spooky23]

A1: https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/trump-v-deutsch...

A2: I don’t know. It would be great if the Department of Justice or Treasury investigated the matter, since the SEC no longer has the capability. However, since the interim Attorney General is a simp who expresses his love for the president repeatedly, that’s unlikely.

A3: Polymarket could make an effort to prevent activity that undermines the integrity of their platform. All betting platforms work to detect the use of the platforms by people like Baseball players and their families. Most public employees names are public, so it should not be impossible to do the same.

The fact that obvious behavior like this happens reflects poorly on the platform. It’s pretty incredible that bettors are stupid enough to use a platform that actively undermines their wagers.

[stinkbeetle]

Thanks. A1 and A2 didn't answer my questions except that I think you're saying that you are not sure if any it is true or not. I was hoping for something substantive beyond the usual conspiracy theorizing.

On A3, money laundering doesn't mean hiding financial activity from the court of public opinion, it means to take an illegal income and put it through processes that obfuscates its origin and makes it difficult for law enforcement to notice or investigate so it can be used in legal markets. "Gambling" doesn't just clean money. Polymarket is electronic and the source and destination of transactions could be subpoenaed. That misconception probably comes from physical casinos where a person would walk in with cash and walk out with a receipt for chips and claim gambling earnings. Doesn't work when you have a paper trail in and out.

It would be stupid to the point of ridiculous to try to launder money this way, even from Trump, lol. Especially on such visible trades! Much more likely it's just making money from insider bets, because that is seemingly not illegal for prediction markets. If you were going to try to use this thing to launder (which seems ridiculous in the first place but maybe it's possible) you would do it with much more mundane bets surely.

> The fact that obvious behavior like this happens reflects poorly on the platform. It’s pretty incredible that bettors are stupid enough to use a platform that actively undermines their wagers.

Gambling is or can be a terrible mental health problem. Stupidity - arguably yes, but also an addiction. Which makes profiting from it pretty awful too really. Although regulations have struggled with how to deal with it because internet and black market gambling is so lucrative and easy to set up too unfortunately.

[Spooky23]

You can't answer with certainty, because the authorities aren't doing their job. No credible, informed person would conclude that there wasn't that kind of activity hapening.

Trump is fairly stupid and reckless, but the 2nd administration is blatant in it's corruption and illegality. The assumption is in the waning days of the administration, they will pardon those who remained loyal.

The argument you use re: gambling is incredulous and a false assumption. The existence of black market gambling isn't a justification to what is happening now -- the full power the marketing and advertising machine. Personally, I'm okay with gambling personally as a fun thing - I don't get a big rise out of it. But I think that making every iPhone a betting terminal is creating social problems that will cause alot of needless misery.

We reject the moral turpitude argument to justify gambling, but hold the abusive gambler personally and morally accountable for their misfortune.

[stinkbeetle]

Well you can answer with certainty that Americans making electronic transactions on an American betting site is not money laundering, by any definition. For more certainty than the original assertion that it is a money laundering play which just doesn't make any sense.