Comment by CamperBob2

5 hours ago

Intrade confuses me. It was illegal to use Intrade as a US citizen; in fact, some people I personally know who were into that scene had to maintain foreign bank accounts.

What has changed, exactly, to make Polymarket legal where Intrade was not?

> What has changed, exactly, to make Polymarket legal where Intrade was not?

Polymarket opened a subbranch to handle US customers subject to US law. It's separate from Polymarket proper, which remains illegal for US citizens to use.

Giving it to you straight: GOP SCOTUS court packing via denying Obama’s nomination led to 6-3 supermajority, and it ruled gambling legislation was a states rights issue. Sports gambling startups ate sports right up, then, innovators like YC funded companies that said “that, but for everything” and collided with a shameless pay-to-play administration, not the general “politicians take donations from companies” kind, the “name don jr as your strategic advisor” kind. (Kalshi) Now the argument that would have appeared batshit insane a decade ago, that there’s no federal way to prevent this) is de facto law of the land.

  • > and it ruled gambling legislation was a states rights issue.

    What did that change? Gambling legislation was a states' issue before. You might have noticed that different states had wildly different gambling regimes.

    (...and all federal legislation is a states' rights issue?)

    > Now the argument that would have appeared batshit insane a decade ago, that there’s no federal way to prevent this[,] is [the] de facto law of the land.

    You're talking about a law that was invalidated eight years ago, and passed 24 years before that. Which position would have looked insane more of the time?