Comment Text:
My name is Scott Johnston. I am a partner of the Belstar Group, an investment firm, as well as a former Adjunct Professor of Economics at Yale University.
The proposed ban on prediction markets is the worst kind of government overreach. They harm no one. Britain has had such markets for decades and somehow society hasn't fallen apart. Furthermore, equating prediction markets with pure games of chance is just false. Participants consider a wide array of political and economic factors before making wagers, something not true of a blackjack player.
If anything, these markets should be unleashed. If more event contracts of greater size and scope were permitted, it would allow participants to hedge all manor of risk, often in ways not currently available.
Please reconsider this ill advised decision.
