Outskirts of Shrewd'm / Travel Wanderer
No. of Recommendations: 3
U.S. Is Said to Be Investigating George Santos Over Kalshi Betting
The former congressman was referred to federal authorities after he bet on his own attendance at the State of the Union address, a person familiar with the matter said.
That Republicans would elect an idiot-grifter like Santos shows how vacuous and corrupt the erstwhile GOP has become.
But to be fair, they elected the biggest grifter in the history of our nation to the office of President, so what do you expect.
No. of Recommendations: 4
U.S. Is Said to Be Investigating George Santos Over Kalshi Betting
The former congressman was referred to federal authorities after he bet on his own attendance at the State of the Union address, a person familiar with the matter said.
That will be a very interesting case. I wonder what they think was the criminal infraction? It wouldn't be insider trading, since there's no material non-public information that he owed any fiduciary obligations on - it's just his own private actions. There's no "misappropriation" that can be the hook for any securities violations.
No. of Recommendations: 2
I wonder what they think was the criminal infraction? It wouldn't be insider trading...
Exactly - he's no longer part of the government, right? What other legal theory would be involved in the betting? Doesn't seem to make much sense, but then again, a lot of what this admin is doing doesn't make much sense.
Pete
No. of Recommendations: 0
I wonder what they think was the criminal infraction?
He controls whether he goes or not--which would be the equivalent of a pro athlete betting on whether he/she was at a particular game.
No. of Recommendations: 6
He controls whether he goes or not--which would be the equivalent of a pro athlete betting on whether he/she was at a particular game.
It's not the equivalent.
The issue with insider trading isn't control. Or fairness. The underlying grounds for insider trading is theft. If you make money based on information that is the property of your employer, you are taking something that isn't yours to take and making money off of it you're not entitled to. That's the fraud.
If a pro athlete bets on whether he will play in a particular game for his team, he's using information that he has by virtue of his employment. That's insider trading. If a pro athlete were to bet on whether he would attend a game in another sport ("Will LeBron James be at the Super Bowl?"), though, that's a different situation from the perspective of the securities/commodities laws.
No. of Recommendations: 0
If a pro athlete bets on whether he will play in a particular game for his team, he's using information that he has by virtue of his employment. That's insider trading.
Yes, which begs the question (not you personally) about what the information Santos used was not his, especially when he was no longer part of the government. Is there some kind of NDA that is being used? Doesn't seem likely or that it would be enforceable in such circumstances or that it would really apply anyway. It will be interesting to see the legal theory underlying this.
Pete
No. of Recommendations: 4
That will be a very interesting case. I wonder what they think was the criminal infraction? It wouldn't be insider trading, since there's no material non-public information that he owed any fiduciary obligations on - it's just his own private actions. There's no "misappropriation" that can be the hook for any securities violations.
George Santos is an ethics-starved sycophant who is mostly a symptom of degeneracy rather than a cause.
More in the crosshairs- the institutionalization of high stakes gambling avenues that we have allowed to grow and flourish- the billionaires who established them, and the politicians/judges who allowed them.
A good place to start would be dismantling Citizens United. That would begin to address even more outrages that have corrupted our political and even economic lives.
No. of Recommendations: 1
A good place to start would be dismantling Citizens United. That would begin to address even more outrages that have corrupted our political and even economic lives.
Of course, but what specifically is the Santos case resting on?
Pete
No. of Recommendations: 3
Yes, which begs the question (not you personally) about what the information Santos used was not his, especially when he was no longer part of the government.I
suspect that this might be an expansion of the legal theory applied in the NBA "insider trading" indictments that were made late last year. Namely, that if you violate the prediction market's Terms of Service, you are somehow committing commodities fraud. The argument raised in that case was discussed in this column (Bolded language the quote from the indictment):
The defendants and their co-conspirators made and caused others to make materially false and misleading statements and representations to the Betting Companies, and to omit to state one or more material facts which made what was represented under the circumstances misleading, including that the wagers were placed in accordance with the Betting Companies’ terms and conditions and house rules prohibiting, among other things, wagering based on non-public information and straw betting.
I think that says that insider betting is a crime if a sportsbook’s house rules say “you can’t insider bet.” That is considerably broader than the rule in the stock market. (If the sportsbook’s terms of service said “you can’t bet if you have a good statistical model of basketball games,” would doing so be a crime?) But, as I often write, everything is sports gambling now, and I suppose this is the rule. Insider betting is about fairness (to the sportsbook!), so if you know something that the sportsbook doesn’t you can’t bet.https://archive.ph/vv5NOBut...that's kind of weird, right? One of the things that prediction markets are
supposed to do is incorporate knowledge about the subject of the prediction into the market price. That's (presumably) why some of these market prices are arguably better predictors of future events - people that know important stuff about the subject will have an incentive to make trades, and the resultant shifts in price convey that information to the rest of the world.
That's what's supposed to happen in things like commodities markets: all the companies that will need to buy jet fuel in 2027 (for example) will use their internal projections for future jet fuel demand to determine their purchases to hedge that risk, and sellers of jet fuel will do the same for what they think their production will involve, and that allows the market to have a pretty good view into what
current conditions say about the 2027 jet fuel market. It's fraud for individuals who
work for those companies to make insider bets on jet fuel futures, because they're stealing proprietary information from their firms - but not fraud for the companies themselves to look at the non-public information they have about their own future jet fuel needs when making decisions on buying jet fuel futures.
So when Santos is trading on his own personal information that he didn't obtain from anyone else and has no duty to keep secret...how is that insider trading?
No. of Recommendations: 5
I wonder what they think was the criminal infraction? It wouldn't be insider trading, since there's no material non-public information that he owed any fiduciary obligations on - it's just his own private actions.
Simple fraud isn’t good enough? He clearly defrauded people who bet the other way, based on his repeated assertions that he was going to be there. Then he bet he wouldn’t be there, and surprise, surprise, he wasn’t. Therefore he defrauded those who bet based on his assurances, no?
No. of Recommendations: 3
He clearly defrauded people who bet the other way, based on his repeated assertions that he was going to be there.
All the bets should have been annulled, funds returned to the bettors, AND Santos banned for life from betting due to bettor fraud and misrepresentation. This would also prevent anyone from claiming one thing and then betting (publicly or privately) against his/her claims. No winnings if all bets are nullified and bets returned.
No. of Recommendations: 11
It wouldn't be insider trading, since there's no material non-public information that he owed any fiduciary obligations on...
Both John Oliver and Perun have covered this market betting. Perun approached it from a defense perspective, which IS a big deal. Insiders betting on an attack (for example)? They are motivated to either make it happen, or make it not happen, because of the bet. And it telegraphs what the insiders are planning to do to our enemy. Which is why, I believe, some military insiders are being prosecuted as we speak (write?).
As for attending the SOU address? Yeah, who cares. That's nothing. Betting that we're going to bomb Karg Island (for example), and being in a position to know/influence it, is a big deal.
