Download this post to watch the video —if your feed reader does not show it to you.

Hurry up, folks.

I demand to be appointed as web designer and SEO expert at Sean Park’s website, which has still some connection problem.

- Buy the brand-new Apple Macintosh MacBook Pro 17″ —I’ll get mine in 2 weeks.

- Get used to connect to the Internet using the WiFi technology —there are so many WiFi HotSpots out there (including in business offices, airports, public places, and restaurants/coffee shops like McDonald’s) that, if ever you run into trouble with your home/office wifi hotspot, you go out and take your laptop in one of those places to continue your work on the Web seamlessly.

Excellent.

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Allo, Jed, is there anybody home?

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Re question 15.

Your assertion that “contracts on the outcome of a sporting event should be prohibited as they are too akin to gambling“ basically undermines most of your other arguments, in the sense that it is absolutely arbitrary and entirely subjective. Irrespective of your personal views on the subject it also smacks of pandering (making an assumption – probably correct – that the CFTC will shrink from anything that might include sports) throwing into question the basis of the logic of the rest of your arguments. Unfortunate indeed.

As to your suggestion wrt contracts with terrible outcomes, I sympathize with your intent but also think your somewhat arbitrary exclusion weakens the overall argument in favor of these markets. Life insurance is not illegal. Deliberately murdering someone to collect said insurance is…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always easy to come up with a set of rules that can handle even a limited number of potentially awkward contingencies well. An [assassination] contract on the President might well serve a useful and legitimate purpose (and an equally important challenge to ‘follow the money’ so that no nefarious insiders collect…) while a market on Joe your next-door neighbour would be superfluous and potentially dangerous.

One of the reasons I think America gets so squirmy when it comes to markets in general and event markets (betting) in particular as it forces them (collectively, the culture) to face the reality that the home of the free (market) is actually a bit of a myth, and that information arbitrage, power-brokers and the apocryphal smoke-filled room still dominate every aspect of American political and business life. Very few people who have power are happy to see it seep away…especially to the crowd!

[...] I was heartened to read John Delaney’s (InTrade CEO) contribution [...]. I would certainly have endorsed this contribution – well crafted, robust, articulate and (imo) stating the blindingly obvious [...].

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Yes, his input was great, but, alas, it won’t win in the end.

The CFTC will probably rule out the “excluded commodities” way (against the will of HedgeStreet and the CME Group) in favor of the “exempt commodities” route (for a reason of convenience). In parallel (and maybe as a consequence of), the CFTC will probably direct those “event markets” to lightly-regulated, US-based, small prediction exchanges —with plenty of restrictions upon them. Those restrictions are what is still up in the air, in my assessment.

So, the picture does not look like the CFTC ruling will please InTrade CEO John Delaney —but if I’m wrong in the end, of course, I’ll be happy.

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As for me, I’m intrigued by the contribution from “Crystal World Markets” – (PDF file). I will blog about it, at a later time, this Summer 2008.

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