Friday, May 25, 2007

Mankiw takes a step towards deregulating prediction exchanges

By giving us a link to an excellent link to prediction markets advocate Justin Wolfers.

Hope springs eternal. Here was my first post on Mankiw; I've emailed with him, and he seems to be a really great guy.

New Intrade Contract: Bloomberg as Independent for President



At Intrade:
The Exchange has listed a contract on Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York) announcing his intention to seek the Presidency of the United States in 2008 as an independent candidate. This contract can be found under Politics -- 2008 US Election -- Michael Bloomberg to run as Independent. This contract will settle (expire) at 100 ($10.00) if Michael Bloomberg (Mayor of New York) announces his intention to run for President of the United States in 2008 as an Independent candidate. The contract will settle (expire) at 0 ($0.00) if he does not make such an announcement. Expiry will be based on official and public announcements made by Michael Bloomberg and as reported in three independent and reliable media sources. Due to the nature of this contract please also see Contract Rule 1.9 Unforeseen Circumstances. The Exchange reserves the right to invoke Contract Rule 1.8 (Time Protection) if deemed appropriate. Any changes to the result after the contract has expired will not be taken into account - Exchange Rule 1.4 Please contact the exchange by emailing help@intrade.com if you have any questions regarding this contract before you place a trade.
I've traded this a little bit, but am currently flat.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Great article on how (yet again) prediction markets more accurate than "experts"

From NewsFutures, by way of Midas Oracle.:
After the debate, the pundits were all agreed that Royal had scored some points, and even die-hard Sarkozy fans openly worried that Royal had bested their champion. The next morning, newspapers and radio stations still conveyed the impression that Royal’s performance had probably helped her. However, the trading pattern one could observe on NewsFutures and other prediction markets told a different story altogether. The price of Sarkozy’s contract actually rose a little during the debate and just after, as evidenced in the chart at left. The next morning, this gain held, even as political pundits on the radio stations were still praising Royal’s performance. The disconnect continued until the afternoon, when the results of a poll taken just after the debate showed that it was Sarkozy that had come out on top, confirming the market’s impression.

So, once again, prediction markets performed quite well in an electoral context. This, of course, won’t come as a big surprise to anyone familiar with the field.

Greg Mankiw ponders Intrade arb on Dem POTUS candidates

Alerted by one of his readers, Mankiw asks:
Here is an apparent arbitrage:

Sell Clinton (bid is now 38.3), Obama (16.5), Gore (7.3), and Edwards (3.6) for a total of 65.7. Buy a contract for a generic Democratic win (ask is now 56.8). You pocket the difference (65.7-56.8=8.9). You have to pay out on the first contract if one of these four candidates wins, but in that case you are covered by the second contract. The only contingency in which you lose is if Clinton, Obama, Gore, or Edwards end up president as an independent or Republican candidate, which seems completely unlikely.

So why am I giving away this arbitrage opportunity for free? I must be either unsure of my analysis, or motivated by the search for truth rather than money. Your call.


At the time of my post, the commenter jck says:
"If a named individual from this group, 2008 US Presidential Election Winning Individual, receives his/her political party nomination, the named individual contract listed in this group will be merged into the relevant political party contract in the contract group named 2008 US Presidential Election Winner (Political Party).
E.g. if the Democratic Party nominates Hillary Clinton as their candidate for the 2008 presidential election, all Open Interest (member open positions, not open orders) in the contract 2008.PRESIDENT.CLINTON(H) will be merged into the Democrats to Win contract in the contract group titled 2008 US Presidential Election Winner (Political Party)."
Therefore if you are short H.CLINTON and long "Dem to Win" your positions self-cancel.
For the nominee issue,I mean that it is possible for the initial nominee to be different than the final one,without being morbid for exemple:accidents happen,scandals happen etc...in that case the merging will not be reversed according to the rules and another candidate would be nominated who will also be subject to the merging rule except this time you do not have a long position in "Dems to Win",so you are no longer in an arb situation but a speculative short.
Another rule than can create havoc with this arb is in the notes:"In the unlikely event of the untimely death of one of the named individuals, all trades will be unwound and fees reimbursed to members accounts. (This only applies to contracts that have not been merged with a Political Party contract)."
This means that you won't get the proceeds of a short position on a non-nominated individual if he doesn't survive past the election results.To be sure we are talking long shots but in risk arbitrage one should try to anticipate most possibilities and read the rules carefully to see how they will be handled...This arb is fairly priced given transaction costs and cost of money,and i wouldn't do it for that reason.
jck sounds like someone who makes money at Intrade/TS. Not a rare breed, but not common, either.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Wa wa waaaa....Edwards sliding fast


Price for 2008 Democratic Pres Nominee(Others on Request) at intrade.com


Whatever mojo Edwards had after announcing his wife's breast cancer has u-turned and heading south quickly. The headlines haven't been too kind to him as his message and lifestyle appear to be clashing. Today's revelation that he may have a take in the $500 million pirate bounty found in a shipwreck recently can't help.

(Note from Cav: ITYS, back on May 10).

Recession Contracts could be going to zero


Oh no, the WSJ reports that poor people doing a lot better (subscription required):

It's been a rough week for John Edwards, and now comes more bad news for his "two Americas" campaign theme. A new study by the Congressional Budget Office says the poor have been getting less poor. On average, CBO found that low-wage households with children had incomes after inflation that were more than one-third higher in 2005 than in 1991.

The CBO results don't fit the prevailing media stereotype of the U.S. economy as a richer take all affair -- which may explain why you haven't read about them. Among all families with children, the poorest fifth had the fastest overall earnings growth over the 15 years measured. (See the nearby chart.) The poorest even had higher earnings growth than the richest 20%. The earnings of these poor households are about 80% higher today than in the early 1990s.

The report also rebuts the claim, fashionable in some precincts on CNN, that the middle class is losing ground. The median family with children saw an 18% rise in earnings from the early 1990s through 2005. That's $8,500 more purchasing power after inflation. The wealthiest fifth made a 55% gain in earnings, but the key point is that every class saw significant gains in income.

There's a lot of income mobility in America, so comparing poor families today with the poor families of 10 years ago can be misleading because they're not the same families. Every year hundreds of thousands of new immigrants and the young enter the workforce at "poor" income levels. But the CBO study found that, with the exception of chronically poor families who have no breadwinner, low-income job holders are climbing the income ladder.

When CBO examined surveys of the same poor families over a two year period, 2001-2003, it found that "the average income for those households increased by nearly 45%." That's especially impressive considering that those were two of the weakest years for economic growth across the 15 years of the larger study.

It doesn't look like we will see the 2 successive quarterly declines in real GDP this year. Although I am expecting the next GDP reports to underwhelm, given the retail cooling that we have seen.

UPDATE: Alan Greenspan talking up the recession. Who is smarter, the prediction market or the ex-Fed Chair?

Monday, May 21, 2007

"After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood"


Fred Thompson said that, by way of Steve Bainbridge. Somebody took out all the buy stops UP TO 50! (Which took out most of my long).

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Dubner's Trifecta



Steve Dubner says:

For U.S. President:

Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

Rudolph Giuliani (R-NY)

Michael Bloomberg (I-NY)

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

My Solution for the Removal of Nuclear Waste

Option 1): Launch into outerspace

OR

Option 2): Launch the waste into the Sun (this would alleviate any fears of alien retaliation millions of years from now)

Sounds like a Prediction Market

"If no one has even one percent of all the knowledge in a society, then it is crucial that the other 99 percent of knowledge -- scattered in tiny and individually unimpressive amounts among the population at large -- be allowed the freedom to be used in working out mutual accommodations among the people themselves.

These innumerable mutual interactions are what bring the other 99 percent of knowledge into play -- and generate new knowledge.

That is why free markets, judicial restraint, and reliance on decisions and traditions growing out of the experiences of the many -- rather than the groupthink of the elite few -- are so important."

Read more Here

Deadissue debates passionately with me

We don't agree on some things, but he seems to have the cajones of his convictions. Here is one little discussion we are having on Dobson v Gore, global warming, and the coercive government on his blog:
  1. caveat bettor says:

    Dobson is a big government Keynesian who wants the government to coerce people to behave according to his enlightened agenda. Sounds like Al Gore to me (just a different agenda).

    Anyways, liberty is always desirable next to death. Come over to the Light, Al!

  2. Al Swearengen says:

    Al Gore wants to curb the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, and he’s on par with a guy who makes money off of parents wanting to make their kids ‘not gay’?

    ...

    Al Gore is not comparable to James Dobson. Keynesian economic theory doesn’t jive at all with our economic policy of the 90s! I can understand how someone would characterize Dobson as Keynesian, but to label any deviation from laissez-faire capitalism as something to the opposite extreme is something I notice a lot of from the right-wing economists out there who tend to get their voice into print more often than others.

    ...
  3. caveat bettor says:

    Al, you are the passionate wordsmith, and you have my respect.

    Both Gore’s position on carbon and Dobson’s position on gays requires faith, at least from where I observe things. And both of them want to use the coercive power of government to get their way. Therein the equivalence, at least in my feeble mind.

  4. Al Swearengen says:

    With “a chunk of ice the size of California melting off of Antarctica” today - I’d suggest that the question of faith in regards to global warming is with the side that says it isn’t happening.

    The difference between someone using government to limit the rights of gays and someone using government to deal with an environmental problem is enormous.

    ...

    The interest of Exxon’s money is well within its rights to publish anti-science literature to temper the government’s will to act on something that will effect the bottom line, but Swearengen the investor and Swearengen the citizen are two different beasts entirely…and while I’d be the first to peg a buy price on Exxon stock if I thought the commodities market was in for an upswing in pricing, I’d also sell that stock without the slightest bit of ill-will felt towards the governments that took the initiative to form a policy to tax carbon emissions.

    There are millions of choices out there to build an investment strategy around. If regulation is going to have an adverse effect on one sector, then it’s time to get out of that sector and figure out something else. Much better to have legislation pass that forces a 2% drop in value of the stock you had to sell, than for 100% of the value to drop when oversight and regulation is lax or non existent (Enron)!

    Or as they say in Baltimore…”It’s all in the game”

  5. Al Swearengen says:

    And caveat - thanks for the kind words! I enjoy reading your blog a great deal - - - unique is a rare quality to find in the blogsphere, but your site fits that description, without a doubt.

  6. caveat bettor says:

    Al, I concede that there are more recorded instances of ice melting than ice thickening (I haven’t surveyed comprehensively, but I do know of evidence that parts of Greenland and Antarctica have thicker ice now than before).

    I follow the Goddard Institute of Space Science data on global temperatures and agree that the earth’s surface is warmer today than 30 years ago. In terms of what actionable items should be implemented now is a more involved question. (For example, see Becker’s treatment on the ridculously low discount rate used by the IPCC, which is a basic denial of time value, here http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2007/02/global_warming_1.html).

    Al, do you think population replacement is an issue? If so, then shouldn’t all people who are reproductively capable be regulated into birthing and rearing their 2.1 children, as population replacement dictates? Including gays? Just wondering.

    I think that population replacement is a bigger problem than global warming, in terms of the science. The former is certainly more falsifiable than the latter, with respect to Karl Popper.

    So, if we should regulate carbon emissions to some degree, it logically follows that we should regulate population replacement to a greater degree.

    What am I missing here?

The human time constant

Over at BritannicaBlog, a spark of realization that prediction markets might be a good thing, after all. Welcome to the party!

This reminds me of a technology consultant that worked with me, who always cited "the human time constant" for reasons why it took so long for people to arrive at the good and obvious decisions.

At this rate, prediction markets will be fully legal and liquid by the time my grandkids arrive (and my kids aren't even in middle school yet).

UPDATE: Oh, I just noticed that it’s good ole Bryan Caplan writing.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Jim Geraghty pretty much sums up my thoughts...

on the debate


My thoughts:

Paul- I don't even know why you run as a republican and not as a libertarian/independent.
Romney- I want to believe him but I just can't, too slick.
Guliani- ups and downs; strongly disagree with him on abortion (think huckabee framed debate very well); bitch-slapped ron paul
McCain- decent performance; disagree on the torture issue (nation-states think about the Geneva convention, terrorists don't); stuck to his positions
Hunter- impressed me at times; but just wont win it
Brownback- im a religious conservative too; but i am not voting for him
Gilmore- dont really remember
Thompson- is he from wisconsin or something?
Huckabee- i like him; hes personable; reminds me a little bit of John Edwards in presentation/looks; I've seen him speak in person as well; likeable (possible VP choice)

My Conclusion:
Don't really care for another debate until august/september or so; lets throw guliani, mccain, romney, fred thompson, and gingrich in to see what comes out of it.

Gawker on the 2008 presidential candidates



Funny stuff.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Obama drops the auto industry. Does he lose the UAW?


Barack Obama talks tough to the U.S. auto industry. Is it courageous or foolhardy--conventional wisdom holds that the Dems need the unions, not so much for their donations, but for their grassroots manpower and high voting turnout. But Obama, who has some free trade sentiment in past elections, is not sticking with the tried and true. Kevin Naughton reports:
"Sen. Obama embarrassed himself in Detroit with his lack of understanding of the problems facing the automobile industry, and what it will really take to fix them," the conservative-leaning Detroit News said in an editorial beside a political cartoon mocking Obama for criticizing a Detroit SUV that turns out to be a Toyota Land Cruiser. During his speech, the auto execs in the crowd—and there were many—began muttering that he didn't know what he was talking about. (One factual gaffe getting a lot of traction is Obama's assertion that Japanese cars average 45mpg, when the actual mileage is closer 30mpg). "It was definitely uncomfortable," says Eric Foster, a Detroit political consultant who sat near tables full of auto execs. "The mood lightened when he took on the oil industry."

Obama had barely left Detroit's Cobo Hall before lobbyists for the automakers and the United Auto Workers began churning out stats to counter his argument. From the UAW: the jobs of 17,000 workers will be put at risk by Obama's proposal to require a 4 percent annual increase in gas mileage (a suggestion, by the way, first made by President Bush). From Chrysler: Obama's offer of $7 billion to help with the automaker's health-care costs translates to $29 per car, compared to a benefits burden of $1,500 per car the U.S. automakers now bear. "Twenty-nine dollars," says Chrysler spokesman Colin McBean, "is really not a lot of help."

Indeed, dismissing Detroit as a relic of the bygone American Century is politically popular just about everywhere at the moment. In fact, Obama didn't even have to leave town to find support on that front. After his speech, he raced off to two fund-raisers in Detroit, including a $2,300-a-plate dinner at Seldom Blues, a hip jazz restaurant atop the General Motors headquarters building along the Detroit River. The restaurant was packed with about 250 people, but the crowd didn't include auto execs, UAW leaders or Mayor Kilpatrick. That might work for now, as Obama attempts to define himself as an independent thinker. But ultimately, like Al Gore, Obama will have to make nice with those he criticized in Motown. Why? For the last four presidential elections, Michigan has gone Blue, unlike most Midwestern states. "In the end, the presidential race is all about electoral votes," says Kilpatrick. "If Michigan is not important to a particular candidate, that's fine. But we've got 18 electoral votes. That's pretty significant." If Obama hopes to win the White House, he might make his next drive through Detroit more of a joy ride.

Friday, May 11, 2007

When Gambling Is Good

I think a distinction between gamblers and traders needs to be made (so I made it here). That said, here is a WSJ op-ed (subscription required) by Hahn & Tetlock:

The crystal balls are called prediction markets or information markets, and they help forecasters, for example by allowing traders to vote with their money on the future unemployment rate or the winner of the next presidential race. If you visit the Iowa Electronic Markets, you can take a financial position on the Democrats' chances of winning the White House in 2008. As this is being written, a contract purchased for $6.15 would yield $10 if a Democrat wins, allowing analysts to infer that the "market" believes the Dems have a 61.5% chance of taking the election.

Some businesses, meanwhile, use internal information markets to predict outcomes of specialized interest. Hewlett Packard asks employees to predict revenues and operating profits, believing the exercise can add useful information to conventional forecasting methods. HP is even pondering the sale of a commercial version of its BRAIN (Behaviorally Robust Aggregation of Information in Networks). Eli Lilly has used these markets to help predict which newly developed chemical entities will become successful drugs. Google has used the approach to forecast product launch dates.

These markets often predict more accurately than experts. Why? They draw on the knowledge of people who might otherwise be ignored. Their anonymity frees participants from pressures to agree with opinion leaders. And they create straightforward profit incentives that encourage participants to search for better information.

Many academics across the political spectrum are excited that prediction markets could improve decision making in a whole host of arenas. Yet regulatory restrictions imposed by federal and state anti-gambling laws make these markets risky to operate. The Iowa market -- deemed by regulators to be a teaching device -- is the only public forum in the United States where the technique can be used with great flexibility, low cost and little fear of government intervention.

But when did politicians actually move the ball forward? They are too busy shaving points for their donors and voters. Points that the silent majority pays for. As usual.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Quote of the day

Atheism not only keeps the guilt, but it also keeps the confusion.

From Douglas Wilson, responding to Christopher Hitchens. Or, as WuzzaDem cleverly nicknames him (scroll to bottom), Xopher Hitchens.

Still No GOD.EXISTS contracts listed. (Nor GLOBAL.WARMING contracts, either--I'm dead serious about those).

Time to short Edwards?


From Tigerhawk, this was pretty amusing and also trade-provoking:
{Edwards} claims he went to work for a hedge fund in "order to learn about the relationships between financial markets and poverty."

Yeah. Hedge funds are full of people who think deeply about the relationship between their business and the distribution of wealth. You know, just like soup kitchens are full of people who understand that volatility is a tradeable asset.

What a maroon.
And a prescient commenter, Charlottevillian, says:
Edwards is done. He has to now cater to the lunatic fringe because its all he has. His "two Americas" meme has been completely discredited by his own absurd life. Between the disclosure of his $400 haircuts funded by his campaign, his massive compound, and now his exploration of poverty through hedge fund management, he has become our own Marie Antoinette. Talk about unforced errors!

I just hope he stays in the race long enough to engage in some real primary debates. That could be fun.
So I went and sold 1 DEM.NOM.EDWARD @ 8. (I am also long some OBAMA, RICHRDSN, and WARNER--the last 2 are underwater).

The limitations of logic (and the need for passion)

In case you need catching up, 2 of the finer prediction market intellects, Steve Levitt and Robin Hanson took different tacks on the economists petition in favor of rolling back restrictions on prediction exchanges.

Levitt wouldn’t sign, and gave his reasons here.

Hanson repudiated with Levitt’s decision with a bit of logic here.

My initial post on this at Caveat Bettor:

Levitt reminds me of Private Trip in Glory: tear it up. Tear it up! TEAR IT UP!!!

To expand a little on this, my thinking on Hanson’s fair and accurate but possibly weak argument is this: logic only holds in a given paradigm. Thus, if the paradigm is shifting, or we very much want it to shift, an illogical response may be more effective. In the film Glory, the Negro regiment was only paid $12 per month, even though they enlisted for $15 and white regiments were paid $15. Private Trip, played in an Oscar-worthy and award-winning way by Denzel Washington, says “we can stop a bullet the same as a white man”, and he encourages his comrades in arms to tear up their paychecks. Logically, Private Jupiter Sharts tells him “Twelve dollars is a lot of money”–economically speaking, these men could take their reduced wages and express them in speech and other markets, increasing their influence.

But no, they tear them up. They inspire their white officers to tear up their pay, too. An inspiring scene in an inspiring movie, that helps to change the world. The all-black regiment from Massachusetts kicks butt, inspires the creation of several more black regiments through the North, and starts a wonderful tradition of african american service and dignity that continues in american history through the world wars and even to today.

I think Levitt, in his own way, is doing the same thing that Private Trip did when he found out about that first paycheck. Good for him!

Cross posted from Midas Oracle.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Senior ESPN writer thinks Patriots should have kept Branch

What?!? This is an exact quote from Jeffri Chadiha's article:
Why didn't the Patriots just pay former wide receiver Deion Branch in the first place? It would've saved them a lot more cash this offseason. It would've given them a better chance at beating Indianapolis in last season's AFC Championship Game.
But Senior ESPN Writer Chadiha never specifies the savings. I beg to differ. This is was my analysis back in April:
Considering Deion Branch is costing the Seahawks $8 mil this year (and $22 mil in the first 3 years of his $38 mil contract), having Randy Moss for $3-5 mil for just this season looks much nicer. That means the Patriots have $12 mil in cap space that they can allocate this season and next, plus the perceived upgrade from Branch to Moss this season. Win now, plus win next season.
Had Chadiha just said "it usually takes more than a year for receiver to learn a new offensive system" instead of making false claims about money, I would not be all over him/her.

C'mon, ESPN, you are demonstrating why big media outlets need to be held accountable by wee blogger fishies like me.

My prediction of Fed Wording

"Inflation pressure appears to be moderating, market may have turned corner in mortgage lending, surprising corporate growth, keep rates steady, forsee lower energy prices"

Probably too many topics but that is what I am seeing. I offered my prediction on the hurricane season and oil prices over at Capitalism and Freedom. Hurricane season has started 3 weeks early unfortunately.

State of the US Economy? Strong.

From today's WSJ editorial (subscription required):
Here's the "surge" you aren't reading about: the continuing flood of tax revenue into the federal Treasury. Tax receipts for April were $70 billion above the same month in 2006, and April 24 marked the single biggest day of tax collections in U.S. history, at $48.7 billion, according to the latest Treasury report.

The April comparison is slightly askew because the IRS processed more returns than usual this year. But there's no denying that Americans are sending more money than ever to Washington; revenues for the first seven months of fiscal 2007 are up 11.3%, or $153 billion. This Beltway bonanza has helped to slash the projected federal budget deficit by more than half from the same point last year. Across the past three Aprils, federal red ink has sunk by nearly $300 billion. The deficit this year could tumble to $150 billion, or an economically trivial 1% of GDP.

This revenue boom certainly casts doubt on the political wails about tax loopholes for the rich. So far this year, the taxes paid on so-called nonwithheld income, which are dollars that don't come from normal wages and salaries, have climbed by nearly 30%. This is income largely derived from capital gains, dividends and other investment sources -- i.e., the tax rates that President Bush cut in 2003. Individual income taxes are also up by 17.5% -- a handsome fiscal dividend from rising wages and low unemployment.

Are recession fears overpriced? Here's the latest pricing from Intrade:

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

I read the most simple yet brilliant thing by Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy just now

From The Upside of Income Inequality (hat tip Greg Mankiw):
Higher rates of return on capital are a sign of greater productivity in the economy, and that inference is fully applica­ble to human capital as well as to physical capital.

For many, the solution to an increase in inequality is to make the tax structure more progressive—raise taxes on high-income households and reduce taxes on low-income households. While this may sound sensible, it is not. Would these same indi­viduals advocate a tax on going to college and a subsidy for dropping out of high school in response to the increased importance of education? We think not. Yet shifting the tax structure has exactly this effect.

Levitt does not sign economists' petition on prediction markets

Here's why (hat tip Chris Masse).

I've made similar points here, here, here, and here.

Levitt reminds me of Private Trip in Glory: tear it up. Tear it up! TEAR IT UP!!!

Friday, May 04, 2007

First GOP debate is done: 3 winners and 1 loser

The winners: Romney
McCainFred Thompson

And the loser? Rudy, Rudy ...

Ann Althouse has some wrapup commentary.

Salutations, deadissue

Here's his blog. We both love Barney Frank, but one of us really loathes Jimmy Carter, which makes most of his posts difficult for me to digest--heck, I can just go back to New England where I was born and raised to get reimmersed in the politics of Ted Kennedy.

I think I'm sticking him on my blogoll, anyways. His comments here are just too intelligent not to do so.

Sports Guy plays tribute to his muse

Rest in peace, David:
Through college and grad school, as I was slowly deciding on a career, I read it every year to remind myself how to write -- how to save words, how to construct a sentence, how to tell someone's life story without relying on quotes, how to make anecdotes come alive. It was my own personal writing seminar. ... Every two years, I read that book again to make sure that my writing hasn't slipped too much. Like a golfer visiting his old instructor to check on his swing.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Wow, there really is a journalistic conspiracy

to keep us poor and stupid!

This is the silliness I left at Greg Mankiw's blog just now

Comment 15:
I think that the NBA needs some affirmative action--all asians and latinos should get triple the points for the same scoring, because they are so underrepresented in the league.
Too frazzled with work, I guess.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

This Could Change Everything

Sorry for my extended sabbatical but this was worth the wait.

Some potential big news today that Rep. Barney Frank (D, Mass) has apparently proposed what is called the “Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act of 2007" (cant believe I just posted to an MSN article)

Nothing yet at the National Right for Online Gambling.

Any lawyers out there that can share their opinions? Will TS be able to operate under the conditions proposed? How about a TS contract on this bill passing?