Betting is as old as the humans who invented initial set of the social games. It is one of those games which has caused rise and fall of kingdoms. But as the society evolved it realized the manipulation that causes problems in society due to the betting.
Be it sports bettering, stock market betting and also variety of other forms of betting of social events are illegal in nations worldwide. Very few nations out there allow the betting of all types. But Taiwan is not into those nations. It has banned the betting on TV, Radio, Internet etc.
Now recently there is one platform that has surfaced named Polymarket. This serves as one of those multi niche market and platform that has hosted the betting for the election results. And there are some organizers and the betters who played into it. And police has managed to catch them.
Let's talk about this case an how Taiwan police has managed to catch the bettors in this case.
What is Polymarket and What happened on their Platform
Polymarket is a prediction market platform. So here you would find option to bet on things like election results, saturday night game of rugby and even EPL results too. So there is a massive market for small to high amount of the result betting scenarios. And there are people who are active on it as well.
As the Polymarket is dealing with the event based binary option system. It is going to cause a dispute with the law makers because it is not compliant in the first place. And on the top of that it is doing the event based betting for the nation outside it's jurisdiction which in case of the taiwan, and so they got a notice served through CTFC.
You can check out the notice here.
Illegal Election Betting in Taiwan
Taiwan has two parties candidates standing up for election, Democratic Progressive Party and Taiwan People’s Party. And each of their candidates are being taken into the betting that has been setup on the polymarket and they have managed to put some bets on the same. And this has been going through the blockchain.
Considering this smart contract based betting along with the event based binary smart contract would make this whole process illegal as the election of the foreign nation is being betted on the american service on internet. So that considered as an illegal act and for which taiwan police has arrested 17 locals.
In Aftermath Blockchain Betting is Dicey
As much as we are open for the freedom of speech there is a limit for the freedom of action. And betting is illegal in many nations and for which if the legal internet platform are used then they are likely to invite more or less attention of the law makers and they are on the right side this time with the law.
Some ways this can be done for the sports betting if it is in the legal nations. But overall it is in dicey situation. And we can't say if this is where we can find the blockchain and crypto use as the right use. Most of the platforms are already rigged and betting is not even legal so the govt has right to take the actions on the same.
Taiwan being the extension of the chinese soil, though trying to become independent, they are still into the communist ideology on how much they intend to control the narrative in the society. Betting being illegal this time they are on the right side of the history.