Why bet only imaginary money? (wasRe:[extropy-chat]SETI:Firstradiosignal from alien)

[Brett Paatsch]

Chris Hibbert wrote:

> I helped run a real money Idea Futures market for members
> of the Foresight Institute that ran for a couple of years several
> years ago.

Good on you for trying anyway.

> The hard part is deciding in what manner you are
> going to attempt not be too visible to some overzealous politician
> or prosecutor.

This seems like the wrong way to look at the problem to me.

>The main problem isn't that it's clearly illegal, the problem is that
> it's not clearly legal.

If a person doesn't do something because it might be illegal but they
are not sure then they may not do anything. None of us are born
knowing the laws of our land - some of us try to understand them
because they make up the environment in which we are going to
have to live.

I am not advocating lawbreaking, but I would advocate finding out
what the law actually is.

> It doesn't matter if it's inside a private organization:
> if you allow it to be visible, then a prosecutor can go after you if he
> wants, and he gets to use taxpayer funds, while you have to defend
> yourself at your own expense.

Lets say that's true. Are you talking federal prosecutor or state
prosecutor?
Why would they want - where is the upside for them ?

If the organisation holding and/or processing the bets infrastructure or
legal office was in say Switzerland then would would "the prosecutor"
in the US state or federal be able to go after it?

I suspect not but I'm not an expert.

> There are local laws all over the US that make gambling illegal, and
> for the most part, they're broadly written.

Thats not surprising.

>  The only safe approach
> is to not attract the attention of those who might benefit from starting
> a prosecution.

I couldn't disagree more strongly. The sensible approach to me looks
to be more to work out ways of doing it in serious scale. So that the
organisation has financial credibility and so that law firms and lawyers
who might be inclined to work pro bono or for the professional kudo
would be interested in working against vexatious legal costs
leveraging.

> ... He couldn't figure out how to
> categorize the money they were holding for the IF market so it wouldn't
> raise questions with the accountants, so he asked us to shut it down.

This makes accountants and lawyers sound a bit like priests and
magicians to be feared by mere mortals for the black arts they
practice.

Surely a knowledge of law and/or a capacity to balance books and
work with numbers doesn't automatically preclude a person from
being interested in making money out of technology related futures.

Brett Paatsch