There's a reason the Hong Kong billionaires used to decry gambling as the worst of the vices.
There is a natural limit on how much you can spend drinking, whoring or eating before it kills you.
With gambling there is no limit and you can destroy not only yourself
but the family and not just the family but future generations of the
fam.
As one of my favorite translators says, "No good".
From Politico, December 21:
The CEOs of Polymarket and Kalshi were facing off with the federal government one year ago. Now they’re new power players in Washington.
Wall Street’s newest whiz kids were up against the full force of the federal government a year ago.
Now, with President Donald Trump in charge, Shayne Coplan and Tarek Mansour — the messy-haired, 20-something billionaires behind the betting platforms Polymarket and Kalshi — are riding high.
Coplan’s Polymarket is returning to the U.S., one year after federal agents raided his apartment as part of a probe into whether the company was illegally operating domestically. And Mansour’s Kalshi has beaten back the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, its chief regulator, in a fight over election betting. Both are now expanding further into politics and sports while drawing big-name backers like Donald Trump Jr. and the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company.
The companies, known as prediction markets, take online bets on everything from elections to details of Taylor Swift’s wedding to the return of Jesus Christ. That trading then generates odds showing the likelihood of a particular event happening, such as who will win the 2028 presidential election. (Vice President JD Vance’s odds are currently at around 30 percent, the highest of any contender on Polymarket and Kalshi.)
Once a fringe corner of finance, prediction markets could eventually become a trillion-dollar industry, according to Mansour, making online bets pervasive in everyday life. This raises questions about the potential for insider trading and other risks that come with gambling on everything and anything. As the biggest players, Polymarket and Kalshi stand to benefit the most....
....MUCH MORE
Related, July 2015 -Pray you don't develop a Swarovski habit.
