alt Hacker NewsCount 3, how is this a commodity?
Count 1, 4, and 5 are the crime of committing a crime. Crime 1 is commiting a crime for personal reasons. 4 is commiting a crime over the wire. 5 is commiting a crime using money.
The only real crime is Count 2: Theft of info.
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I feel like if you followed the NBA scandal involving Chauncey Billups the wire fraud charge for insider prediction market trading was inevitable.
Damon Jones didn't work for the NBA and basically just told some people the status of an injury to LeBron because he hangs out with him (in exchange for money). His crime I guess is gambling illegally? But wire fraud (I think they even say "creating a fraudulent market") was thrown in there.
Seemed inevitable they were going to start charging prediction market insiders the same way.
For count 3, the prediction markets consider the "bets" to actually be futures contracts, and futures contracts are regulated together with commodities (in the U.S. by the CFTC). There is ongoing litigation about whether this is the proper designation, but that is the U.S. government's position. Insider trading rules are more lax for futures than other products, but I believe this case likely does violate existing rules.