I don't love casinos or lotteries, but at least there's the friction of having to travel to a physical location to feed your addiction.

And then there's the whole "insider trading" and "gambling on war" angles that come into play with prediction markets.

Or if you allow it put a warning like the surgeon generals warning on tobacco. Clearly state that most people lose money.

Smoking is legal but advertising cigarettes is illegal. I grew up in the 1980's where smoking was everywhere. We even had a smoking area at school. Today I don't know anyone that smokes. Obviously people still do but it is much less common

* researchers found that prediction markets are actually good for your wellbeing

* lobby group is lobbying to fight against Utah lawmakers who are working against the wellbeing of people in Utah

These markets are a straightforward way to cut through all the noise of the current media conglomerates. Rather than getting bombarded by inflated headlines a glance at polymarket or kalshi is often enough to know whether something is actually happening or it's just the media corporations trying to get your attention.

Of course there should be limits with regards to what kind of markets are allowed on these platforms. But in a lot of areas there's genuine price discovery happening that's not available anywhere else.

Perhaps a solution instead of banning them would be to create a class similar to accredited investors that are allowed to participate. And stuff like market manipulation should just be prosecuted in old fashioned ways like we prosecute any crime.

It's like you make something legal, and some group of people try as hard as possible to push the limit as far as they can, and in turn ruin for everyone.

You could just force the biggest entities in this space to comply and people wouldn't care enough about secretly betting on wars so it would all work out.

* if you make it so that everyone sees what their neighbor betted on then overall predictions will become less accurate due to social signaling