Comment Text:
I think the proposed rule change is misguided and would be detrimental, and ask those in charge of making it to reconsider doing so. I have personally used PredictIt through several election cycles, and my experience with it has not been that of “gaming” or gambling. Gamblers and gamers bet on feelings, hunches, and lucky numbers, colors, dates, etc. PredictIt users, including myself, collect information and make an informed guess as to how a race will turn out, and then buy shares in that outcome, much like the stock market PredictIt is modeled after.
PredictIt has a high rate of accuracy in predicting outcomes, which not only distinguishes it from gamblers’ guesses or gamers’ luck(which have very low rates), but makes it a useful prediction tool for political/social analysis; a tool that would be lost if the nature of PredictIt is significantly altered by re-classification.
Also, the amount of of shares that any one person can buy in any one market is capped at a very moderate dollar amount, further distinguishing PredictIt from gaming, further preventing it from being a for-profit enterprise like gaming is, and protecting the individual from getting carried away by the very excitement and “this time is my lucky time” beliefs that characterize gambling. The interest factor of PredictIt is in following socio/political trends and testing your research/analysis skills against others who do the same, not in get-rich-quick excitement.
I think significantly altering the nature of PredictIt through regulation changes would be a loss for everyone, and again ask those in charge of the decision to reconsider doing so.
