FTC to revoke predictit's trading licence on 2/15/23

[I faked the autism]

Predictit is a company founded in 2014, A New Zealand-based online prediction market and a research aggregator that offers exchanges on political and financial events such as tax rates, legislation, political party primaries, elections, and international elections. PredictIt is owned and operated by Victoria University of Wellington with support from Aristotle, Inc. The company's office is located in Washington, D.C.

PredictIt is also a project of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, a not-for-profit university, for educational purposes. The site is supported by Aristotle International, Inc., a U.S. provider of data processing and verification services. They operate under the terms of a No Action letter granted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in October, 2014. It is an experimental project operated for academic purposes. Despite there being a prohibition of online betting in the U.S.A., PredictIt secured a no-action letter from the Division of Market Oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading protecting them against action from the FTC (Federal Trading Commission)

Note:
Even though many states have legalized online gambling or betting prediction markets, it is still federally illegal.

Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act

This Act prohibits any person engaged in the business of betting, as defined, from knowingly accepting credit, electronic fund transfers, checks, or any other payment involving a financial institut

www.ftc.gov

August 2022
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, without clear explanation, revoked PredictIt’s permission to operate, ordering that it shut down by mid-February.

In response, Predictit has decided to post their original agreement on the front page of their website. You can download and read the full 6 page statement/PDF file here by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission of the no action letter granted to Predictit in 2014.

September 2022
Predictit remains confident they did not violate any terms of the no action protection letter. You can read their damage assessment, response to the community, And response on a plan going forward Here (This is subject to updates at any time)

The lawsuit
Predictit has launched a lawsuit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to block the shutdown order and more specifically to give a reason as to which term they violated.
The lawsuit was filed on Sept. 9 in U.S. Federal District Court for the Western District of Texas.
You can read/download the full copy of the lawsuit here in PDF format.
Relevant articles specifically relating to the lawsuit
Yahoo finance (they basically repost coindesks article but note they reached out for comment from the CFTC with no response)
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Coindesk
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Other relevant articles specifically to the decision of CFTC to drop Predictits no action letter
The Atlantic
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Bloomberg
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The New York Times
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Washington Post
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Gaming Today
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Gambling News
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Quartz
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Slate
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(Out of the articles that reached out for comment from Commodity Futures Trading Commission or CFTC, none have received any.)

edit: this is the CFTC's statement https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8567-22
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I've also decided to include the archives of Predictit's boa in New Zealand and their partner Aristotle.

Victoria University of Wellington

archived 29 Jul 2022 21:59:53 UTC

archive.ph

10yr old Aristotle archive

Political technology, software, data and micro-targeting for campaign…

archived 20 Jul 2012 01:29:21 UTC

archive.ph

Current https://archive.ph/ETA3O

 

[Bogliacci]

Too good an indicator by how popular sentiment actually swung, need to be able to obscure it to make sure elections can be fortified

 

[I faked the autism]

Too good an indicator by how popular sentiment actually swung, need to be able to obscure it to make sure elections can be fortified

Kind of, a lot of that is driven by opportunistic trading. I hope, they give an update soon on markets that close after February. I still have open contracts for the GOP and Democrat presidential primaries and the general presidential, I could sell now and still be at a gain but I was hoping to get the maximum payout from Predictit instead of offloading my shares to other traders.
>Picture related

 

[I faked the autism]

Predictit has Retweeted the Atlantic article.
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Whatever you think of The Atlantic, it's an interesting read on the hypocrisy of the FTC when it comes to online sports betting vs prediction markets on politics. Given the recent events of FTX and Binance, (although I don't think Predictit will do that) I've decided to update the op.

 

[Safir]

the hypocrisy of the FTC when it comes to online sports betting vs prediction markets on politics

I'm too lazy to find out FTC's justification, but there's a clear difference between betting on sports vs betting on politics, and the journo is a retarded whore for not pointing it out: it gives you the incentive to vote a particular way. Maybe you want P to win but think Q will win, so you invest in Q; what now? A candidate can bet against himself winning, thus making it attractive for others to bet on his victory and then go vote for him. Or, a candidate can bet against himself winning and then lose on purpose. Buying votes is illegal, for reasons. Fixing sports matches is illegal, for reasons. Why, for largely the same reasons, shouldn't betting on politics be [made] illegal?

 

[khaine]

Guess they weren't very good, considering they didn't predict this

 

[I faked the autism]

I'm too lazy to find out FTC's justification, but there's a clear difference between betting on sports vs betting on politics, and the journo is a retarded whore for not pointing it out: it gives you the incentive to vote a particular way. Maybe you want P to win but think Q will win, so you invest in Q; what now? A candidate can bet against himself winning, thus making it attractive for others to bet on his victory and then go vote for him. Or, a candidate can bet against himself winning and then lose on purpose. Buying votes is illegal, for reasons. Fixing sports matches is illegal, for reasons. Why, for largely the same reasons, shouldn't betting on politics be [made] illegal?

It was the CFTC who revoked Predictits protection from the FTC and they didn't really give a reason, the full CFTC statement is in the OP, including Predictits Lawsuit against the CFTC, The FTC is just going to come in and rape Predictit now that there protection is gone.
Normally I'd agree with gambling on politics but I mean you have some major political pundits talking about just outright paying voters to vote for them lol. You basically already have that with Bidens stimulus checks and promises for student loan forgiveness. (Although that's not as explicit) and then you have ballot harvesting, mail in voting, etc. Maybe I'm just black pilled on politics and would prefer to at least make some money off of it. Politicians do insider trading all the time, people Like Nancy pelosi and Rand Paul investing stock in Tesla right before Congress approves $100 million in subsidies for Elon Musk. Why shouldn't the average person be able to gain money off of politics while Congress members and senators do it so blatantly? And whos going to investigate the insider trading? Is Congress going to investigate themselves? I don't think so.