8 Dragons

About 8 Dragons

“Prediction markets have branded themselves as legal and safe, but the reality is they are not adhering to Connecticut’s consumer protection standards,” Lamont wrote in a statement.

While such orders have become customary around the nation this year, Connecticut’s missive took it one step further. The department also issued nearly 30 subpoenas to licensed gaming service providers and a bevy of media outlets. Those issued subpoenas include ones served to PayPal, Sportradar Solutions and Plaid, a payment processing app that holds a gaming licence. Although those companies are not under investigation, the subpoenas appear to be the first against service providers that conduct business with prediction markets in some form.

– In the wake of a consequential ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit against Kalshi, two operators are taking separate paths in an effort to overturn the decision. On 28 August, the Ninth Circuit ruled in a 3-0 decision that sports event contracts do not qualify as federally regulated swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act. Earlier this week, Kalshi filed for an en banc re-hearing with the Ninth Circuit, this time before an 11-judge review. Robinhood, meanwhile, filed a petition of certiorari with the Supreme Court in a move to effectively bypass the Ninth Circuit. It is widely believed that a circuit split between the Ninth Circuit and a separate decision by the Third Circuit will prompt the Supreme Court to take up the case.

What is 8 Dragons?

The text also prohibits bets placed using credit cards, the use of predictive models to identify moments of greater vulnerability, and platform design mechanisms that hinder a conscious decision to stop betting, leave the service, or activate limits and blocks. Operators must maintain permanent alerts about compulsive gambling, indebtedness and asset loss, and adopt verifiable protocols for identifying risky behaviour.  

The proposal establishes criteria for classifying products according to their potential for harm. Among the characteristics considered are instantaneous or short-lived results, continuous repetition at short intervals, use of random mechanisms to determine the outcome, intermittent rewards, near-miss incentives, incentives to recover losses and features that make it difficult to stop betting or induce successive, impulsive, or increasingly valuable bets. 

Products offered to the public must undergo prior evaluation by a competent body of the Federal Executive Branch, to be defined in regulations. Products classified as high-risk will be subject to specific harm reduction measures. Products with excessive risk may not be offered. This category includes products with outcomes determined by random mechanisms, continuous cycles and variable rewards, such as roulette, slot machines, collision games and simulated virtual sports. 

How to play 8 Dragons

Kesitilwe acknowledges that while Africa is one continent, it is also hugely diverse in terms of markets with different realities across regulatory structures and social contexts.

Therefore, the aim is not to create a single regulatory model, but rather continued collaboration that allows for locally relevant messaging and measures.

“We respect those differences,” Kesitilwe explains. “At the same time, many of these risks cross borders. We do not need identical laws in every country, but we do need greater cooperation.