Is the Honor Rating really the only chink in Betcha.com’s legal armor? If so, they have a better shot at surviving that I had imagined.

Chris F. Masse June 28th, 2007

The ecstatic and puzzled David Pennock in a comment on Tom Bell’s Midas Oracle blog post… sorry, Tom W. Bell.

Question to Jason Ruspini: Should some US-based prediction exchange(s) adopt the Betcha legal trick?

UPDATE: Tom W. Bell…

David: I spoke of “the” chink in Becha.com’s legal armor–not “the only” one. Perhaps it suffers from many potential liabilities. I suppose we all do, alas. Regardless, I was sticking to one particular issue.

Regulations
Comments(1)

One Response to “Is the Honor Rating really the only chink in Betcha.com’s legal armor? If so, they have a better shot at surviving that I had imagined.”

# Jason Ruspini on 28 Jun 2007 at 10:17 am

Especially after the Neteller arrests in January, I would not recommend anyone pursuing legal “hacks” although Betcha’s is very clever (and I admire Jenkins and identify with his journeyman lawyer mentality).

Is their credit rating a “thing of value”? If it is possible to sell an account (with credit rating) and attach a new credit card to it, then yes, it definitely is. If there is no way to feasibly transfer the credit rating then it is less clear. But even if traders technically do not risk anything, it seems that the traders that honor their bets are in fact gambling and Betcha is making that possible.

Also, the UIGEA 270-day recommendation window is about to expire. I expect some sort of weak recommendation and/or request for further guidelines that will basically amount to an extension. I hope for a very lax recommendation that basically tells the Justice Department, “yeah, so this isn’t really going to happen”.