our democratic process. john, is there anything to be learned from these markets? i want to put a couple of things on the screen. first of all, let s talk about the gop 2024 nomination fight. the polls that i ve seen say that right now in a multi-candidate field, it s like trump at about 50% and desantis at 25% to 30%. in your market it s 37 cents and they re deadlocked. now i m going to put up another one. which party wins the presidency in 2024? democrats 51 cents, republicans 250. and 2024 presidential election winner joe biden, 34 cents. desantis ahead of trump, 29 cents versus 26. the pollster do modeling. the pollsters want to make sure they ve got demographic balance, geographical balance, gender balance. i don t know who is betting on this site. do you think that these folks who are wagering know a little
the legal battle is currently playing itself out in federal court, the u.s. court of appeals for the fifth circuit, which heard arguments this week on before predictit can keep operating. think of it like sports gambling but on political outcomes. joe biden currently trading at 60 cents a share to be the 2024 democratic nominee. if that happens, people who bought a stake can sell each share for the full dollar. donald trump currently trading at 37 cents per share to be the gop nominee, tied with florida governor ron desantis. by next guest, john aristotle phillips, created predictit, in conjunction with the university of wellington. the federal agency that regulates the markets, the commodity futures trading commission, allowed the market originally with a no action letter, meaning it could run as an academic exercise. so predictit has been operating under restrictions. bets are capped at $850 limits, no mar than 5,000 people can be in any given market at a time.
no contracts are allowed on sports or if somebody is going to kid or get kidnapped. now the cftc wants to shut the market down saying it s expanded beyond its educational roots. phillips is fighting back. and, by the way, he has a most unusual backstory. he first became famous in 1976 as the a-bomb kid, when as a princeton undergraduate he created a 34-page how-to guide for building a nuclear weapon using publicly available information. in 1978 he coauthored a book called mushroom: the story of the a-bomb kid . john joins me now. good to see you. why is this legal, where in the united states generally we prohibit wagering on elections? first of all, michael, thanks for having me on. it s good to be back on, actually. so this is specifically permitted under no action relief granted by the agency eight and
being done. in terms of the recipients of the data, it s 100 plus universities, but it s also organizations like the federal reserve get anonymous trading data to understand how markets are forecasting future events. it s crazy that one branch of the government is trying to shut it down after eight and a half years of seamless operation and highly accurate forecasts. john, thank you. it will be interesting to see how this all plays itself out. bet with your head, not over it. thank you, john aristotle phillips. thank you, michael. from the world of social media, what are people saying about this issue? i think betting on elections will only draw the group that bets on anything rather than election fanatics. i hear his point that people have skin in the game and they want to be participating in the process if they ve got something riding on it. i could also say we all already
Political gambling market backers ask Fifth Circuit to nullify federal shutdown order courthousenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from courthousenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.