I copied the following
from this site. Yes, it is a "left" leaning site, which I hate, being a conservative republican, but you do have to balance out the right-wing-whacko-gun-nut-alt-breitbart-propagandist-neocon-group-groping-nuthugger nonsense with some opposing viewpoints from time to time.
However, there are some intelligent people who blog there, and I have been referencing this site for presidential elections for quite a while now..
That being said, it's about a site called
predictit.org, where you can bet the body politic in the US (more or less) for those who are interested. (Read below for more details.)
Q&A
"You have mentioned several times that political betting is illegal in the United States. However, I recently met someone who bragged about betting on politics using the site predictit.org. Is this something that's on the questionable side of legality. Are there other workarounds for U.S. citizens to bet on politics?" K.E., Peoria, IL
Let us start by noting that, quite often, betting concerns like this one operate in a legal gray area. Or, since PredictIt is based in New Zealand, a grey area. That is not to say they are illegal, because they are not. In fact, PredictIt specifically got a letter from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission promising they would not be prosecuted. What we mean by "grey area" is that they operate within certain limits that are somewhat informally defined. The betting sites don't push the limits too much for fear they will be put out of business. And the government authorities don't push back too much for fear that the courts will step in and legalize gambling much more broadly. In other words, the two sides grudgingly accept a status quo that makes neither entirely happy, nor entirely unhappy.
So, what does PredictIt do to keep the authorities from making a stink? There are basically four things. The first is that they are engaged in a form of parimutuel betting: When you gamble on PredictIt, you're not playing against the house, you're playing against other bettors, and the house merely takes a percentage for facilitating the action. This is the same reason that, for example, poker and baccarat are legal in many places while slot machines and blackjack are not. The second and third things have to do with the limits that are placed on any given bet: Only 5,000 bettors for any particular proposition (say, "Donald Trump will be impeached by 2020"), and no bettor may wager more than $850. By keeping the potatoes fairly small, this strongly discourages involvement from organized crime or anyone else who might want to commit fraud. The fourth is that the site is run by Victoria University of Wellington, and the data that is collected is made available to pretty much any academic who wants it. So, there is a veneer of legitimate scholarly research.
The only other legal alternative for U.S. citizens to bet on politics that we are aware of, short of visiting a country that allows you to place wagers on sites like PaddyPower and Bet365, is to use the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM). Essentially everything we said about PredictIt is also true of IEM, except that IEM is run by a university in the U.S. (the University of Iowa), as opposed to one in New Zealand.
...hopefully he will post some additional clarity on the subject...probably already did years ago...but like "pot"...times a changing...
