Comment Text:
I strongly support allowing betting on election outcomes on this publicly traded exchange. The benefits to the average trader and indeed the average citizen fundamentally outweigh any alleged downsides.
While no individual citizen has the ability to determine the outcome of an election through their own efforts, a citizen who may be most impacted by an election, for good or ill, needs reliable information that can help them determine which outcome they can expect and prepare for without needing access to all the underlying data.
Currently, they can only rely on pollsters or other but they cannot express their own belief and receive benefits for correctly predicting outcomes. Citizens who are in locations where the outcome of an election is particularly uncertain can provide insights that might not be captured in polls when they purchase contracts.
In short, this leads to more accurate predictions and lets average persons get useful info and benefits from providing accurate information and correctly predicting outcomes that actually matter to them.
The only parties who may be 'harmed' are pollsters, but even polling companies can use these markets to calibrate their own research.
