Comment Text:
Hi,
I would advise that the concept of prediction markets in their own right, and certainly as currently conceived, run counter to public interest and therefore should not be allowed to exist under the laws and codes cited in that brief attached to this proposed rule.
In the document preamble to this, it is specifically mentioned that market's like these cannot be readily manipulated in order to pass muster. Prediction markets are a site which moves odds depending on the volume of dollars placed on one side of an issue, i.e. those with enough money can manipulate the odds of an event on this site. People look to prediction markets like these, and these prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalashi, advertise themselves, as "better polling". Polls influence both public and individual behavior (see any election). And when the bet is on public and individual behavior, well look at that, an easy way to manipulate that market reserved only for those with enough money to do so. How is that structure, which further empowers wealthy individuals to extract money and change behaviors, in the public interest?
Ideologically, they commodify existence, which is disturbing to me, while adding nothing of value, which should be disturbing to all of us. What public value does being able to bet (because that's what they are) that "Jeff Bezo's tie will be blue today" create? What personal value does it create? I'd argue none, for anybody except the prediction market platform itself in that it has users which it makes a fee off of. Its extraction of wealth. A middle man, the worst kind of man.
I know that this position will not be heeded, but this market should be killed before it is allowed to grow any further.
Thanks for your time,
Matt Johnson
