I mean, betting apps are banned every so often precisely because of this. I don't know how they come back to life like nothing ever happened, but I think this is the third or fourth iteration of them.

The first iteration was killed when they allowed betting on terror attacks. The "logic" was that people with knowledge would bet on the next attack (this was after 9/11) making preparations easier. Just like in the cases of wildfires, though, allowing people to be on an outcomes gives them an incentive to effect it. Buy matches, bet on wildfire.

Strike that. Reverse it.

Wouldn't they just move onto the dark web?

Occupy Wall Street should've been the start of burning it all down.

I used one to bet on a football game when they first came out, but all the non-sports things to gamble on gave me the ick pretty fast. I’m not even a big gambler but if I decide to add some extra spice to a game i plan to watch in the future I’m just going to a sports book, casinos are scummy as hell but for the most part gaming regulations are followed on at least a surface level and you can’t win money on the purposeful suffering of other people or something equally tragic. Or you couldnt last I checked

The ubiquity of gambling culture is killing sports too, which is also much less of a danger but speaks to how when completely unchecked it will ruin everything. I don’t know too many fans of any sport that don’t at least kinda think things are so out of hand it’s calling the legitimacy of the game into question

Tbf a big portion of the stock market - ie oil and arms industry investments - has been "betting whether a school will be bombed or a country toppled" for a long time. This is just a more mask-off version of what America has always been.

Which I don't say to defend it. Exactly the opposite.

Wish you'd told me that about an hour ago. What a senseless tragedy now.

Because you're buying predictions futures, which is apparently legally distinct from gambling... somehow