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forshaper 2 hours ago [-]
I don't get it. Most companies registered in the state I live in, for example, are not actually located here. They simply receive mail through their registered agent there. Why would this be news?
raddan 1 hours ago [-]
On the other hand, most of the companies registered in Delaware are not trying to dodge US federal regulations. Polymarket is prohibited from operating in the US market. Nevertheless they have a substantial customer base in the US, and the part left unsaid in the NPR story, is that they’re probably also headquartered in the US. Almost definitely a violation of either gambling or securities regulations.
trollbridge 47 minutes ago [-]
They are often trying to dodge their local state’s regulations, though.
_--__--__ 26 minutes ago [-]
Incorporating in Delaware was initially attractive because of usury laws that matter to a small number of business sectors.
The charitable take is that most corporations want to comply with a state's regulations because unintentional compliance violations are painful and expensive, and it is relatively easy to be confident that you are compliant as a Delaware corp.
dhosek 5 minutes ago [-]
When I had a C-corp in the 90s for a magazine I was publishing, my dad’s cousin insisted that I should incorporate in Delaware or Nevada. The thing is that because I was operating in California, especially at the small scale that I operated, it did nothing for me at all really. I would still pay California taxes and be subject to California regulations. Mostly it would make a difference if I were sued.
(Obligatory disclaimer that these are ~30-year-old memories of some dumb 20-something’s understanding of the law at the time.)
mywacaday 23 minutes ago [-]
I used to work for a large financial services company who bought 4 storey office block and fitted it out with very small but with own door individual offices that had internet and a connected desk phone so that companies could rent them and say they had more than a box office address in that European capital, I never found out what the rent was.
pear01 36 minutes ago [-]
Polymarket is already working on a full return to the US market aided by sympathetic policy changes of the current administration.
Additionally, the claim "most of the companies registered in Delaware are not trying to dodge US federal regulations" strikes me as dubious. Every company seeks to lower its regulatory burden. If they're not finding loopholes, then often they're the ones writing the regulations and funding congressional campaigns. I'm not sure the claim Polymarket is unique re its relationship to the government in this respect is credible. They seem to be working quite intimately with the current administration on returning from their Biden era "ban".
Extropy_ 1 hours ago [-]
They acknowledge this in the article as well, surprisingly enough.
> Corporate law experts say while there is nothing illegal about housing a business inside a shell company, the practice is often a strategic move to protect a firm's wealth or shield it against lawsuits and action from government regulators.
What is the thought process of someone writing this? Does this article have any meaningful or critical thought behind it?
janalsncm 1 hours ago [-]
It isn’t newsworthy for people who believe the laws around corporate transparency and accountability are good enough.
Many people do not, which is why it is noteworthy, even if it is standard.
horacemorace 1 hours ago [-]
They’re avoiding editorializing. PBS news has the same dry “facts only” flavor. Legitimate reporting takes the high road; corpo-media too often take the low road.
Unfortunately human information consumers tend to gravitate toward sources of maximum opinion.
Exoristos 36 minutes ago [-]
They're doing their part in keeping a spotlight on Polymarket. The content of the article is not irrelevant, but it is less important than the existence of the article.
forshaper 1 hours ago [-]
I guess we're scratching our heads, and even we clicked.
creatonez 1 hours ago [-]
It is indeed already normal for rich people to do things that are sketchy as hell.
Maybe let's make it not normal?
tt24 39 minutes ago [-]
Registered agents are sketchy now?
creatonez 31 minutes ago [-]
If the only shell(s) for a business are in a completely different jurisdiction with no connection whatsoever to any of the humans involved in operating the organization... yes. It's an outrageous way to escape the force of the law that has been rubber stamped by corrupt politicians.
JuniperMesos 1 hours ago [-]
I really don't trust your definition of sketchy as hell and don't want it to have legal or normative force.
creatonez 44 minutes ago [-]
For-profit companies jurisdiction shopping without any physical presence is so clearly sketchy that it's wild anyone could see it otherwise. I can't imagine a normal person not being shocked in disbelief when they first learn about the concept of tax havens.
otterley 38 minutes ago [-]
You haven't heard their definition yet.
alpb 13 minutes ago [-]
this is a good explainer video that talks about why Polymarket maintains a Panama HQ instead of a US one and why it has two different sites (.us vs .com). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seNwZhK4UdA
Carioca 1 hours ago [-]
> Why would this be news?
Mostly because international litigation is, let's say, fraught issues (as in "good luck!")
forshaper 1 hours ago [-]
Yes. Is that news?
aaron695 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
JuniperMesos 1 hours ago [-]
Because NPR dislikes polymarket and thinks that reporting this will discredit them.
shermantanktop 25 minutes ago [-]
If the facts themselves discredit Polymarket, NPR doesn't have to like or dislike them. Polymarket made itself newsworthy, it can't complain if someone looks at them closely.
NuclearPM 48 minutes ago [-]
It does.
dweez 1 hours ago [-]
If you follow Apple's official address to a lawyer's office in Delaware, don't be surprised that Tim Cook isn't there to greet you.
Indeed, their registered agent address is 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington.
quietsegfault 23 minutes ago [-]
So what? A registered agent is literally the agent registered to accept process service. The registered agent is clearly not the corporate headquarters, a branch office, or anything other than a business whose purpose is to accept lawsuits, subpoenas, and other legal and official notices.
EA-3167 1 hours ago [-]
For what it's worth the only "official address" I could find was Apple Park in Cupertino.
ares623 44 minutes ago [-]
It's an interesting "problem". The cities we have now exist because businesses and people want to be located in the same geographical area to maximize, well, doing business.
Now the opposite is happening. Businesses have no incentive being located in the same physical area they do business in. In fact, they have opposite incentives. The closer they are to their customers and workers, the less they can do things with impunity.
NooneAtAll3 1 hours ago [-]
to be fair, empty non-existing official office is nothing new. iirc, Delaware has a warehouse that's official residence of hundreds of corporations (for tax reasons)
I don't understand the rest of the article, tho... It complains that company that (officially) left the US market and already blocks US ips from participating... isn't doing enough? Officially there's no ground to demand more
If you really want to solve the problem - start hunting down unofficial means. Investigate influencers that started mentioning Polymarket out of the blue. Look into news outlets that decided to start mentioning polymarket as supposed proxy of popular opinion. Start advertizing campaigns against gambling addiction the same way as against smoking
ThomW 1 hours ago [-]
Why are Americans allowed to invest in a business that would be illegal if based in the US? Why can they be patrons? Idgi
kube-system 41 seconds ago [-]
Breaking the law doesn’t follow the transitive property.
dayyan 6 minutes ago [-]
"NPR finds 'no sign' of Polymarket's office; sources say the reporting team was 'deeply unsettled' to find a company operating without a mandatory 40-minute 'Land Acknowledgment' in the lobby."
exogeny 11 minutes ago [-]
Polymarket is based in NYC, in Soho, on Crosby Street. Knock yourself out if you want to go find anyone there.
otterley 33 minutes ago [-]
I'm shocked--shocked--that a company with the integrity and upright moral character of Polymarket would have their registered agent located in Panama.
(Wow. It's only been 10 years since the leak occurred? How time flies.)
tick_tock_tick 49 minutes ago [-]
What happened to the quality of NPR over the last dozen or so years it's just gotten worse and worse.
lokar 48 minutes ago [-]
Can you explain what you did not like in the story?
dyauspitr 44 minutes ago [-]
It’s gotten better and more in depth and grounded in my opinion.
ChrisMarshallNY 2 hours ago [-]
So Polymarket is a Web3 outfit?
2 hours ago [-]
londons_explore 1 hours ago [-]
It might as well be a regular website. The crypto bit adds nothing since 99.9% of users just use the webUI.
jcgrillo 2 hours ago [-]
"Court filings show the law office also did work for FTX"
If the shoe fits..
2 hours ago [-]
xiphias2 1 hours ago [-]
There's an easy way for polymarket to have a nice office in a nice city in USA: legalize it there and have nice enough regulations and incentives for it to move there.
It would help a lot actually for protecting people's money instead of driving it offshore.
But it doesn't look like making USA compete in this $15B market is NPR's goal with this article.
soraminazuki 22 minutes ago [-]
While you're at it, let's legalize pig butchering scams too.
"It would help a lot actually for protecting people's money instead of driving it offshore.
But it doesn't look like making USA compete in this $75B market is NPR's goal with this article."
BowBun 1 hours ago [-]
Good on NPR. These markets are a cancer on society and should be outlawed further.
alchemist1e9 26 minutes ago [-]
Does anyone have a good source that details these negative effects? I’m not doubting they exist, I mean gambling in general has many negative externalities, but I’m just interested in identifying the cancer aspects more specifically.
shermantanktop 22 minutes ago [-]
Would you go to a cancer doctor if you knew they were betting on Polymarket as to whether you would do well in your cancer treatment?
Polymarket appears to have people who have both the ability to shape outcomes and anonymously profit on those outcomes.
cindyllm 20 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
kjkjadksj 13 minutes ago [-]
Theres evidence to suggest people in government are using it to front run actions on iran for profit for example. Is this useful to the public to have their lawmakers engage in side bets and dare I even say, game fixing as we see in sports but in the real world with bombs and deaths?
sophrosyne42 26 minutes ago [-]
I have yet to see an argument against them that isn't more than personal disgust
otterley 22 minutes ago [-]
How hard are you looking? "I haven't seen arguments" doesn't mean much if you're not looking for them. You might as well have had a blindfold on. It's as meaningful as saying "I haven't seen arguments as to why Rust eliminates memory safety bugs."
why would they do that if the whole business depends on not having regulations?
sophrosyne42 27 minutes ago [-]
Which regulations in particular? All businesses rely on governments not choking them into nonexistence by having regulations that harm that business. Regulations are not an amorphus blob. There are other regulations that would also benefit a business to enable its existence, but we would not say (or should not say) that "the whole business relies on having regulations," because that is being intentionally vague about what the regulations in question actually are. The way you phrase it almost implied there is inherently something dangerous or suspect about something that is universal about how regulations can effect businesses.
hx8 1 hours ago [-]
I'm sure this is true for thousands and thousands of companies.
EA-3167 1 hours ago [-]
Maybe that should be discouraged? Even if you don't think so, most companies aren't de facto attempts to skirt gambling regulations while also incentivizing corruption and fraud in everyday life.
skywhopper 2 hours ago [-]
Polymarket engages in scammy behavior?? Wait, isn’t that their entire business model?
EdwardDiego 1 hours ago [-]
The part where all their legal troubles went away when one of the President's sons became an "advisor" says "yes".
raddan 1 hours ago [-]
I don’t know why you were modded down because this is mostly true. They are still prohibited from operating in the US but it appears that regulators have no appetite to enforce the law.
gordian-mind 1 hours ago [-]
"the wildly popular prediction market site that has flourished in President Trump's second term."
The only purpose I could see for this intro is to prime the reader negatively before any argument.
The charitable take is that most corporations want to comply with a state's regulations because unintentional compliance violations are painful and expensive, and it is relatively easy to be confident that you are compliant as a Delaware corp.
(Obligatory disclaimer that these are ~30-year-old memories of some dumb 20-something’s understanding of the law at the time.)
Additionally, the claim "most of the companies registered in Delaware are not trying to dodge US federal regulations" strikes me as dubious. Every company seeks to lower its regulatory burden. If they're not finding loopholes, then often they're the ones writing the regulations and funding congressional campaigns. I'm not sure the claim Polymarket is unique re its relationship to the government in this respect is credible. They seem to be working quite intimately with the current administration on returning from their Biden era "ban".
> Corporate law experts say while there is nothing illegal about housing a business inside a shell company, the practice is often a strategic move to protect a firm's wealth or shield it against lawsuits and action from government regulators.
What is the thought process of someone writing this? Does this article have any meaningful or critical thought behind it?
Many people do not, which is why it is noteworthy, even if it is standard.
Maybe let's make it not normal?
Mostly because international litigation is, let's say, fraught issues (as in "good luck!")
Now the opposite is happening. Businesses have no incentive being located in the same physical area they do business in. In fact, they have opposite incentives. The closer they are to their customers and workers, the less they can do things with impunity.
I don't understand the rest of the article, tho... It complains that company that (officially) left the US market and already blocks US ips from participating... isn't doing enough? Officially there's no ground to demand more
If you really want to solve the problem - start hunting down unofficial means. Investigate influencers that started mentioning Polymarket out of the blue. Look into news outlets that decided to start mentioning polymarket as supposed proxy of popular opinion. Start advertizing campaigns against gambling addiction the same way as against smoking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers#Illegal_activiti...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/the-panama-pape...
(Wow. It's only been 10 years since the leak occurred? How time flies.)
If the shoe fits..
It would help a lot actually for protecting people's money instead of driving it offshore.
But it doesn't look like making USA compete in this $15B market is NPR's goal with this article.
"It would help a lot actually for protecting people's money instead of driving it offshore. But it doesn't look like making USA compete in this $75B market is NPR's goal with this article."
Polymarket appears to have people who have both the ability to shape outcomes and anonymously profit on those outcomes.
Here's an example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230628/
This is another excellent article that discusses some of the problems, and has links to other such articles: https://www.wsj.com/finance/investing/polymarket-kalshi-bett...
The only purpose I could see for this intro is to prime the reader negatively before any argument.