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Kalshi and its co-founders face felony charges for violating Utah gambling laws

148 points • by rbanffy • today at 3:29 PM • 82 comments • view on HN

Comments

paxy • today at 4:57 PM

There’s a reason both Kalshi and Polymarket were quick to make political connections (aka pay bribes). They know what they are doing is illegal, and waiting for legislation like sports betting apps did would take too long. So they bought get out of jail free cards instead.

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tfrancisl • today at 5:22 PM

When will we start holding the people who found and operate companies whose sole purpose is to break the law accountable, rather than letting them hide behind "limited liability"?

These founders should be in prison for promoting illegal gambling. Same federal charges mafiosos get caught on for a "friendly card game".

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timcobb • today at 5:57 PM

Just the day I saw a post in the Guardian referring to these things as prediction markets. It's so outrageous and undeserved

mahboi • today at 4:51 PM

Wonder how proxies/VPNs play into this, since Utah was recently in the news about an age verification law that basically said you're liable if anyone physically in Utah accesses a restricted site.

yowayb • today at 4:46 PM

i feel like there's some provable equivalency between gambling and pyramid schemes

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superxpro12 • today at 4:09 PM

kalshi and polymarket are quite obvious gambling sites. any pedantic arguments to the contrary are strictly financial chaff to enhance their operating margins until the regulations finally catch up.

they were never an innovating marketing play... it was the culmination of a gambling company committing to regulatory capture as evinced by Donald Trump Jr (totally not) sitting on BOTH BOARDS as a "paid strategic advisor" or whatever lie they want to spin.

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kube-system • today at 5:18 PM

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josefritzishere • today at 5:52 PM

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Fairburn • today at 5:13 PM

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ChrisArchitect • today at 4:54 PM

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a13n • today at 4:48 PM

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jawiggins • today at 5:01 PM

As much as I am a fan of being able to see the current probability of a future event by checking prediction markets - the argument that there is a meaningful difference between predicting the outcome of a sports game and betting on the outcome of a sports game strains credulity.

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10111001 • today at 4:29 PM

This is outrageous! They're tech founders! Penny-ante things like "the law" don't apply to them!

Somebody needs to tell Utah it needs to change its laws to adapt to their business plan, ASAP.

pr337h4m • today at 4:57 PM

Nobody should ever be threatened with prison time because of a jurisdictional dispute between federal and state governments. That's antithetical to the rule of law, regardless of the specifics of the law or the jurisdictional dispute.

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