If you’re influencing the outcome via some private mechanism that’s a crime and is in fact illegal (a little thing known as insider trading or cheating depending on how you go about it). So per your definition either you can’t influence the outcome in which case it’s gambling, or you can in which case it’s illegal and you’re committing a crime.
All that said I think the definition of gambling being truly random isn’t quite right. Gambling has always been about statistical outcomes because if it was truly random nobody would ever make any money off of it so nobody would waste their time. Remember the house always wins because they control the odds. These sites are just bookies in techbro clothing using marketing and legal loopholes to run illegal gambling sites.
Insider trading applies to securities. Polymarket bets are not securities.
Manipulation violates Polymarket’s ToS, but that’s not criminal.
Now, it might meet the legal criteria for fraud, depending on what one does. But that’s a “maybe.” I’d say that is far easier to get away with than insider trading. EDIT: Especially when hopping jurisdictions (which is not so easy with securities).
If you’re influencing the outcome via some private mechanism that’s a crime and is in fact illegal (a little thing known as insider trading or cheating depending on how you go about it). So per your definition either you can’t influence the outcome in which case it’s gambling, or you can in which case it’s illegal and you’re committing a crime.
All that said I think the definition of gambling being truly random isn’t quite right. Gambling has always been about statistical outcomes because if it was truly random nobody would ever make any money off of it so nobody would waste their time. Remember the house always wins because they control the odds. These sites are just bookies in techbro clothing using marketing and legal loopholes to run illegal gambling sites.
Insider trading applies to securities. Polymarket bets are not securities.
Manipulation violates Polymarket’s ToS, but that’s not criminal.
Now, it might meet the legal criteria for fraud, depending on what one does. But that’s a “maybe.” I’d say that is far easier to get away with than insider trading. EDIT: Especially when hopping jurisdictions (which is not so easy with securities).