FBI raided the home of Shayne Coplan the chief executive of the predictive betting site Polymarket. He was instructed to give the agents his phone and other electronic gadgets. Polymaket felt that this raid was a retaliation by the Joe Biden administration for the betting platform's accurate predictions of the outcome of the elections.

But the Department of Justice claimed that Polymarket is under investigation for allegedly allowing US-based users to bet on the site. Polymarket doesn't have permission to operate bets and predictions in the US but users usually invade the prohibition using VPNs.

Elon Musk and Brian Armstrong have both criticised this raid calling it an attack on political opponents of the present administration. Most people think that this attack was because the government thinks that Polymaket's polls that showed overwhelming support for Donald Trump contributed to his victory.

Do you think gambling platforms should avoid political events?

https://www.[Suspicious link removed]s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/13/fbi-raid-polymarket-founder-trump-election

Hey, guys! Are any of you emotional gamblers who often lose because you can't control what you feel? When you lose, do you tend to double your bets or chase your losses, driven by a pride that can't accept defeat? Do you consider this a problem? If so, has anyone here been able to solve this kind of problem themselves, and if yes, how did you do it?

I have this problem, and based on my personal experience, I find that sometimes I get challenged but not too greedy because I don't have a problem quitting when I'm winning. However, when I'm losing, that's where my struggle lies.

That's why I shared it here; I feel that some of you may experience the same challenges, and I'd love to hear your ideas or experiences on how to win this battle so we can enjoy gambling.

Whenever I win, I usually feel this strong urge to gamble more and also increase the amount I'm using to gamble. I do fall for this urge most times and the result is always disastrous as I end up losing the money I won with great pain and regrets. The only time I can say I have won is when I make withdrawals and possibly use the money for something else. As long as the money is still in the platform, there is a high chance of using it to gamble more. I decided to create this topic to see how other people manage their winning in gambling. If I notice a better approach, I will switch immediately as I don't want to continue experiencing the pain of winning and later losing the money again.

Some Bitcoiners seem to be enthusiastic about plans by politicians to buy or hold big amounts of Bitcoin as part of a "strategic reserve". In particular, Kennedy's announcement that in the (extremely unlikely) case he wins the US election he could buy up to four million Bitcoins as a strategic reserve.

I don't like this idea for the following reason:

States holding such a big amount could interfere too much into Bitcoin's power equilibrium.

Let's see the following hypothetical scenario:

- The US buys 1-2 million BTC, other states/central banks like the ECB, China and India follow, and together they hold let's say 5-7 million (about 25%-35% of all existing Bitcoins).
- Now the FATF sets up a new "recommendation" that a blacklist for "sanctioned" Bitcoin addresses (like those already implemented in Tether and other stablecoins) would be desirable.
- As almost all states obey the FATF's guidelines, together they pressure Bitcoin Core team to implement a blacklist for "sanctioned" Bitcoin addresses which miners have to obey, or alternatively build an own Bitcoin client with a modified protocol.
- This would of course need a hard fork. But they have a lot of coins, so they can increase pressure by threatening to sell all Bitcoins on the chain which does not follow the hard fork. This has a precedent: it's what Ethereum did when they pressured for the hard fork rewinding the TheDAO hack in 2016.

A similar scenario was already discussed for ETFs. But ETFs would never hold so many coins as some are desiring for states/governments to hold, and also their customers could react, so for ETFs I don't see this danger. Up to 1 million, even 2 millions of BTC hold be states/governments/central banks would still not be something to be worried about. But if all bigger states try to buy millions, then it could become really dangerous.

I don't think Bitcoin would "die" in such a scenario, but I think it could lose a lot of value and confidence. And the scenario is not that unlikely to be ignored.

What do you think? I added a poll also with an intermediate scenario like the one announced by Trump, which would lead to a couple of hundred thousands of BTC hold by states, but not millions.

Hey gamblers' community, hope you're all doing great.
I wanted to convey my message here that gambling in front of our kids may put adverse effects on their growing minds and they may also take the wrong path and start gambling (either by asking you personally for funds or by stealing it in order to fulfill their gambling cravings).

I'm sharing this because I saw this issue with my kiddo who was once watching me gamble at a website playing blackjack and she started asking me more about the game. Then one day, she wanted to play it herself and asked me if she can go for it and I said "no, it's not your legal age to go for such games". So, it's better to keep our kiddos away from gambling and let them focus on their studies, else it'd actually ruin everything for the whole family if the kid takes the wrong path.

I tried out something while I was watching some games in the ongoing Olympics and this is what I did;

I looked out for sports I wasn't conversant with the athletes and didn't  know who was better at the sports and did a random prediction on the outcome of the game. I did it for swimming competition and some random boxing yesterday and out of up to 7 predictions I made, almost 6 went the way I predicted it.

It reminds me of writing an objective examination in high school and when you're done with the questions you're certain of, and you just do some random selections and luck could shine on you and you get up to 70% from your rough prediction.

I have not tried this in real games that involves using money but would want to know if anyone has ever tried it before.

Have you ever placed a bet by just doing random guesses on the outcome of the game?

Seriously, how can you say that when we have an unsolved case right here in front of our eyes? You changed the rules after the player had deposited the funds and gambled and you only confiscated his funds after he won the bet. This is clearly abuse on your part.


So you've already had similar cases like this? That should tell you that you are doing something fundamentally wrong. No wonder you have 86% bad reviews on trustpilot.
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/vave.com?languages=all&sort=recency

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/09/05/m6bJb.jpeg