Why would we focus on United States Federal law in this matter? Wouldn't it be better to just use the actual definition of the English word "employee" [...]
Last I checked, the bet was in reference to products made by ButteflyLabs, which is headquartered in Leawood, Kansas. Given that Kansas is in the United States (not sure if you knew that), the company is required to abide by all State and Federal laws..including anything regulated by the Department of Labor.
Bruno was correct. The biggest distinction between being an employee of a company and being paid by one (whatever the reason may be) is
Taxes (though other aspects such as Benefits, Reimbursements, Workman's Compensation, etc can also come into play). By IRS definition alone, a subcontractor is
not an employee of a company.
Simply giving another person compensation for their work does not instantly qualify them to be an employee. Don't you think using a dictionary definition in this case is a bit naïve? If you had a substantial amount of coins riding on this bet and it hinged on the word "employee", wouldn't you want to make sure it was correctly defined?
We agree that the bet was not a push regardless of what was meant by employee.
I don't agree with your logic that the IRS' definition of an employee should be used. The bettors were from all over the world, the currency used was a decentralized digital currency, and betsofbitco.in is not based in the USA. The service betsofbitco.in claims to provide is highly illegal in the USA. It makes much more sense to me to use the English language definition of the word and to abide by the spirit of the bet rather than look for ridiculous outs through playing with semantics.
If I had a wager riding on the bet and it hinged on the word "employee", I would pay my debts. I always pay when I lose a bet. It's scummy to look to weasel your way out of a wager you lost. Stooping to use of legalistic bullshit or otherwise actively going against the spirit of the bet is unethical. I'm not a saint, but I do pay my debts.
What if the "customer" in question were a contractor who had been working full time at BFL for 10 years? You would still insist, for some bizarre reason still not clear to me, to turning to the IRS' specific and limited definition of what constitutes an "employee"? Remind me never to bet with you.
Is Luke-Jr. a foreigner? What kind of visa was/is he in the US on? It's not even legal to come here on a visitor visa and perform work for compensation. Does this matter for the bet? Of course not, the IRS has nothing to do with the bet.