Revelations that Richard Hanania, a prominent member of the political betting community, had written edgy commentaries under a pseudonym sparked a debate on whether or not he should be canceled from the forecasting community.

In a recent episode on Star Spangled Gamblers, Pratik Chougule discusses the dilemmas that controversial figures and divisive topics present in debates over political betting regulation.

Below is an excerpt:

The problem with the full free speech position, which I normally have in the political discourse, is that we’re trying to build something larger and highly regulated and…something that tends to provoke antibodies. So I think we do need to think about these reputational issues….

I think about the regulatory side. Imagine writing a comment to the CFTC and saying, “The reason we really want prediction markets is because they have explanatory power on race that our political discourse doesn’t.’ Try selling that one.