Skill-Based Gambling

melbournecup

Melbourne cup is a big academic event at Sydney university where the faculty take the day off and place horse bets whilst enjoying a high tea.

They have this rule in Australia where the faster horses carry extra ballast. That levels the playing field, ensuring each horse equal opportunity to win.

Despite the fact that the race results might as well be rolled from dice, the academics put great thought into creating statistical models to optimize their stupid horse bets.

Gambling is more fun when there’s perceived skill involved. It can be legal if there’s enough perceived skill involved. Even if the skill is really stupid, like the ability to select a winning lineup for your fantasy golf league.

Yeah. People just really like to gamble. Skill-based is a necessary excuse here because gambling is illegal in America-and-no-other-OECD-country.

At the same time, it’s not. While bitcoin companies are struggling to build a legitimate derivatives exchange, NADEX already has a US market for bitcoin betting with binary options. Wanna bet on sports? Try FanDuel or DraftKings. Online blackjack is illegal, but online skill-based blackjack is fine.

In reality, gambling of all stripes is already legal. You just have to know what to call it.

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