[extropy-chat] Betting on Global Warming

[Mike Lorrey]

--- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> --- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> 
> > Robin Hanson wrote:
> > 
> >  The other possible
> > > loophole I keep thinking about is a charity.  If
> > the charity helps
> > > match bettors, but doesn't take any sort of cut or
> > fee for helping
> > > those bettors, it seems possible that the charity
> > itself would not
> > > be prosecuted.
> > 
> > Are you using charity as a synonym for
> > not-for-profit? Reason I ask is
> > that I'm not currently across the legal
> > distinctions, if any between 
> > charity and not-for-profit, in the US, but in
> > strictly economic terms,
> > it seems to me that even a charity is going to want
> > something to 
> > offset the costs of hosting such a service. 
> 
> I don't see why it would have to be a "charity", an
> NPO, or even any kind of dedicated service. What is
> there to stop me from drawing up a contract that says,
> "I, Stuart LaForge, will pay the Holder and Signee of
> this *original* contract $500, IF by 12am January 1,
> 2010 there is not yet a verifiable... {Palestinian
> state, human clone, manned moon base, etc.} Then
> simply auctioning it off to the highest bidder on
> E-bay. Maybe with some minimum bid or what not. Who
> would get prosecuted? Me? Ebay? The guy who buys my
> contract?       

A performance based offering is a more legitimate future, one that
expects performance of some sort by one of the parties to the contract,
such as delivering hogs heads at a certain price on a certain day, or
launching a suborbital rocket capable of carrying three people into
space twice in two weeks. 

A contract to exchange money if some event happens that no contracted
party has any influence on, or that happen by chance, is a bit hinkier.
A hogs head contract always starts with a hog farmer or slaughterer
somewhere, no matter whether it, or parts of it, ultimately are traded
among people who've never seen a hog in person in their lives.
Derivatives also depend upon real legitimate contracts existing
somewhere.

Now, non-profits can have games of chance for their benefit. I've
helped run raffles for various non-profits over the years, as an
example. Most such activities, though, operate at the state law level
because they happen in one state. Internet futures trading, however,
happens interstate and even internationally, both of which fall under
federal jurisdiction, and it appears from the federal regs Robbie
quoted that it only restricts betting on sports events.

One might look at the sorts of contracts that the x-prize foundation
entered into. Did XPF receive pledges from certain people to donate x
money to the foundation if someone launched a 3 person rocket into
space twice in two weeks? Isn't that a form of sports betting? If
people were to receive their donation pledges back if the challenge
wasn't fulfilled in a certain time frame, that is a form of winning a
bet on a sports event (if one defines riding a vehicle at significant
personal risk of injury or death, expenditure of significant calories
in the physical strain of g-loads, and exhileration at
surviving/succeeding or "agony of defeat", as characteristics of
'sports', such as car racing, boat racing, bobsled/luge racing, ski
racing, airplane racing, submarine racing, and horse racing).

There may be some distinction in that the XPF, being the body that
issued the challenge that contestants obliged themselves to meet, could
legitimately form a syndicate of pledgers, as would investors in a
baseball club, etc. versus two schmoes on the street betting on the
same even neither of whome had any involvement in.

Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

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