Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation’s first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state, the most far-reaching crackdown on massively popular services like Kalshi and Polymarket.
It comes as states confront a growing standoff with the Trump administration over how to regulate the industry, which allows people to bet on virtually anything.
The new state law makes it a crime to host or advertise a prediction market, which it defines as a system that lets consumers place a wager on a future outcome, like sports, elections, weather, live entertainment, someone’s word choice and world affairs.
The prohibition extends to services supporting prediction markets, like virtual private networks, that could allow consumers to disguise their location and get around the ban.
It would force prediction market sites like Kalshi and Polymarket to leave the state, or face possible felony charges. The law takes effect in August.
So they quietly just slipped a blanket VPN ban in there, too? Would be interested to read more about that part …
Seems to be the intention.
They should go further and ban people from leaving the state, since that could also be used to circumvent the ban.
These people have bank accounts. What not just pass a law saying banks can’t take payments from these sites instead of banning VPNs?
Prior to New Jersey amending their state constitution to allow online sports betting in 2011, and mostly leading to the opening of online gambling we’re experiencing now, enforcement was usually taken against the “casinos” rather than the handlers. Back then it was CEOs of the betting companies getting caught on their flight layovers and charged with the illegal gambling stuff.
Doubt the intention is to enforce against the gamblers for the reasons already implied here, like the difficulty of tracking and enforcing vpn monitoring.
So do they have a business exception or are they just saying fuck everyone including businesses? Which would be surprising.
All businesses are felons now.
Here is the relevant text of the signed bill SF4760, make your judgement as you will:
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So they’d have to prove that the VPN provider somehow knew the user’s intention? It will they just steamroll over the facts and claim that any provider should assume that?
My guess is they’re shooting for VPNs that operate in the state to DNS block the big markets.
Good questions. At a minimum any VPN marketing in MN would need to tiptoe around claims that you can watch region locked content as if you were there.
Personally, I think VPNs that don’t receive or keep customers’ info and logs could have a credible argument that they don’t know whether their customers use it for prediction markets or not.
Cue laws that VPNs monitor their clients’ traffic
Hey what the fuck, good eye
How else are they going to ban prediction markets if people can pretend they aren’t in Minnesota?
VPNs have many legitimate use cases though, unlike prediction markets.
I think the ban is on using VPNs to circumvent the prediction market prohibition, not on using VPNs whatsoever.
This is how I read it.
I would think VPN usage in this case could be proven without the VPN giving anything up, depending on what the poly market logs. If they log that a bet occured with X person at Y time from an IP that’s from another state or known to be a VPN IP address… And all proof shows they were 100% at home in MN. Then a case could be made they used a VPN to trick the poly market into accepting the bet. Then, boom, another charge added on.
Or if the poly market itself teaches people how to vpn to get around the ban… they would see more charges.
Trace the financial transactions, which can’t fully be hidden by a VPN.
Sure, a Minnesota resident could use a VPN to go to a prediction market gambling site … but when they pay money to make their bet or receive money from a bet that pays out, those financial transactions should be traceable to and from Minnesota.
Don’t they often take crypto currency though?
I’ll start off by saying I’m not sure if prediction markets take crypto or not. However, even if they did, there’s not really any crypto brokers that don’t follow KYC (know your customer) policies. It would require a subpoena to get the information about a specific customer, but the ledger is public, so you can see everyone’s transactions.
Some do, sure, and those will probably remain as ways to avoid the law. Though, at least in theory, it will still be illegal and people doing it could at least in theory be caught and prosecuted for it.
Shutting down the main ones, while leaving crypto-based ones as a legally risky alternative will still greatly hamper and slow down these prediction markets’ business in Minnesota.
darnit I did not assimilate that well enough. ugh.
You could always use tor browser to access the sites.
You’re relying on Air Bud rules to get around that.
“Ain’t nothin in the rules that says
a dog can’t play basketballa tor relay ain’t a VPN.”SSH tunnels and SOCKS proxies also apply.
Yeah the same rules that the ruling class uses to get around paying taxes.
Yes but we don’t have MONEY
Don’t need money if we flood it. Can’t catch all the speeders.
It’s against hosting or advertising those markets. I think if they leave that out of the ad campaign they’ll be fine.
No, it specifically says “provide supportive services.”
Which would require a specific relationship with one of those markets.
If I use a VPN to access Google, does that mean I have a “special relationship” with Google?
I believe the point is if google was illegal where you live, it would be illegal if Google said "hey you can still reach us without the big man knowing by using our partners ‘borgVPN’ ". BorgVPN could be in trouble for the partnership, even if they aren’t the actual banned service.
Sure, but that’s not really explicitly laid out in the law.
Laws typically are not that explicitly laid out. There needs to be some flexibility and generality to them or they become worthless.
Right, and it’s worded generically enough that it could be interpreted as applying to any VPN.