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- Hacker News
- regulated entities mad at unregulated entities, nothing to see here, yawn
- Actually exactly the reverseby anigbrowl
- Looks like Kalshi lost its bet…by BobbyTables2
- All good and cool when they do it and make money, like the lotteries, but when normal people do it nonono, can't happen.
That said, I've never touched Kalshi or that other one or the lottery. It's all a scam anyway.
by eahm - how does anyone regard these things as innovationby gregjw
- Yeah, the idea is over 25 years old here in Europe and is called "betting exchange". Their only innovation is getting it regulated as commodity trading rather than online gambling.by jeltz
- I wonder what this means for cases under loss recovery acts in states that have them.by lokar
- Rem when mafia bookies running sports betting was a subplot on The Soprano's? It wasn't that long ago.by morkalork
- Well they are still doing it.by SoftTalker
- (Not American)
What does 9th circuit or some circuit court mean?
It some name of a specific court, just not the place name?
Or is it special kind of court and “9” is some sort of level? Importance or hierarchy related? Escalation level? (Assuming your SC eventually is also at the top like in India)
- I see a lot of questions here that can be googled or asked with AI chat. Good question, but I also think, why didn’t that person just find out themselves? It’s so easy..
- 9th is a region (includes California) circuit is a level (appeals court right below Supreme)by mayneack
- As I understand it, each state has a certain federal appeals court that it belongs to - and these federal appeals courts are numbered. The 9th circuit is the highest appeals court responsible for all federal suits coming from Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. They are higher than any other court in those states in matters of federal law (state law is separate), with only the (federal) Supreme Court being above them - but the Supreme Court is not a regular court, they have discretion on what suits to hear (whereas the appeals courts have to hear any suit that gets lawfully appealed in their jurisdiction).
Other appeals courts have jurisdiction over other areas of the country - and there is no question of level between them, as they have completely separate jurisdictions.
It's important also that every circuit court is beholden to its own precedent, and every court below them is beholden to the precedent set by their appeals court. But courts in other areas of the country are not - it's perfectly legal (though not extremely common) for one appeals court to decide one way and another to decide a different way on the same matter of Federal law. Unless the SC intervenes, the appeals court of your particular jurisdiction is the ultimate authority on how that federal law is to be interpreted in your jurisdiction.
So, the fact that the 9th circuit decided that Kalshi is a gambling site and not a commodity futures trading platform means that they have to be treated this way by all federal and state agencies in California, Arizona, etc; but they could still be recognized as falling under CFTC rules in Texas or New York, as the 9th circuit decision is not applicable in those jurisdictions.
by tsimionescu - From my hazy recollection from law school, the US appeals courts are called "circuits" because back in the day, they weren't actual buildings but rather judges that would go around town-to-town within their jurisdiction in a horse-drawn carriage 'in a circuit' (that corresponded to a certain geographic area). The name just stuck even after they were permanently enshrined into physical structures (each corresponding to a given region).
- The appeals court found sports betting isn’t shielded by the federal law used to block Kris Mayes’ prosecution.by hungryhobbit
- Hope dang comes in with a headline rewriteby dcrazy
- > “Congress did not take a wrecking ball to all sports gambling regulations built up over decades by federal, state, and tribal governments when it amended the (Commodity Exchange Act),” Judge Ryan Nelson wrote in the unanimous decision.
Incredible that it's taken this long to arrive at the obvious.
- The law is slow by design, it's deliberative, it's multi-staged, it's escalatory and obsessed with consulting multiple jurists. That can be extremely frustrating until you start looking into how the country would look if individual judges were able to fast-track the whole system. Naturally we'd celebrate the positive outcomes, but the bad ruling would immediately go into effect rather than facing injunction, review, etc.
These laws have profound effects and it takes people time to learn about what they pertain to, especially new technology or new ways of using it. It's good to have periods of feedback between the public, the courts, the legislature and the executive branch. The same things that slow down what we most want to happen quickly also slow down the things we desperately want to avoid.
"If only the law moved as quickly as an individual" is great until you get a guy like Trump in power.
by EA-3167 - Gambling is a negative externality that needs to be taxed.
Gambling takes advantage of the poor, under-educated, and addictive personalities and puts them into financial distress. This places burden on families, the state, and local municipalities. It creates strain on the workforce and deflects legitimate economic activity that would otherwise strengthen the economy.
We're a free society. I'm fine with gambling from a personal liberty perspective, but the companies that facilitate and profit need to pay 40-50% of their gross revenue to the government. That's comparable to tobacco.
Companies also need to be restricted in how they are able to advertise their vices. Never to children, and never targeted to at-risk personality types.
They also need to be tightly regulated and kept from using dark patterns and addictive gotcha mechanics to cause even greater harm to those most at risk.
by echelon - Lawyer here - As i explained last time we had a variant of this thread (see comment history if you are interested), this is a very complicated area that people try to make very simple.
It doesn't have to be complicated, mind you, but right now the way the law is written is basically:
1. Transmitting sports betting info between states is a federal crime unless it's legal in both states (18 U.S.C. § 1084(a))
2. The CEA regulations ban contracts that are illegal under state law (17 CFR 40.11)
3. Other forms of gambling/betting/contracts that are not sports are generally a-ok.
4. This is not a case of first impression, it's just getting relitigated because Kalshi doesn't want to follow the actual law. This has actually been pretty settled law for a long time, with new flareups maybe once a decade. Kalshi is just hoping to be treated like Uber was.
The third circuit's decision is pretty clearly "out there" in terms of existing caselaw.
However, this will end up at SCOTUS, and everything until then just doesn't matter. That will be a coin flip even though it shouldn't be
by DannyBee - wish more lawyers broke down things simply like you did.
unfortunately - as you pointed out the outcome of the cases being a coin flip at the supreme court is the tragedy in all of this.
by dzonga - > That will be a coin flip
I call $50 on Tails!
- > because Kalshi doesn't want to follow the actual law
Correction: because the federal government doesn't want Kalshi to follow the actual law. CFTC ordered Kalshi to continue operating in NY when NY tried to crack down on it. Donald Trump Jr. is a paid advisor for Kalshi. The US Government's conservative leaders are ignoring states' rights in order to personally profit, using Kalshi as a tool.
> this will end up at SCOTUS, and everything until then just doesn't matter
Unless Congress passes a law so SCOTUS doesn't have to. We can't keep pretending it's normal for SCOTUS to decide everything about our society. If Congress won't do its job, why do we have them?
by 0xbadcafebee - Isn't this also more unique since they're trading futures contracts vs whatever a traditional sports bet is? I thought it was kind of a clever end run around the law where taking down their gig would also mean that you have to attack commodities futures contracts as well and that the Congress would be loathe to do that lest they accidentally outlaw the stock market.
When I say "clever" I don't mean"good" I mean "crafty". You acknowledge someone has game without condoning their behavior or extolling it as virtuous.
by msandford - > Kalshi is just hoping to be treated like Uber was.
This is not a bad strategy for a company in our asymmetric regulatory environment. Fortunes were made in crypto on exactly this one-way bet.
Go on breaking the law until you get a favorable judge/Congress. Nobody is going to jail (we don't really do that anymore), you might pay a fine. Every once in a while you'll have change the app a little to sort of comply with a judicial order. There's practically no downside to this strategy.
by runako