ICYMI: Murphy on Substack: Prediction Markets Are the Latest Sign of Our Spiritual Disintegration

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) this week published a Substack warning of prediction markets' potentially disastrous effects on our social and spiritual wellbeing. Murphy discussed how prediction markets have transformed fundamentally moral questions, with life-or-death stakes, into speculative financial wagers, inducing everyday Americans to participate in important public decisions through gamified online betting instead of civic engagement and action.

Last month, in response to highly suspicious betting activity on prediction markets in the hours leading up to the initial strikes on Iran, Murphy introduced the BETS OFF Act, legislation to ban prediction markets involving government actions, war, and events where one person either knows or controls the outcome.

Murphy sounded the alarm on the White House's corruption of our national security through prediction markets: "[Prediction] markets are, of course, wildly corrupt and dangerous for our political process… Imagine a high-ranking U.S. military leader, who has wagered $50,000 on a U.S. invasion, pushing for war at the Situation Room table not because it is necessary for our national security, but because he stands to get rich quick from his bet. Imagine the powerful people close to President Trump using classified and highly sensitive inside information about the war to place highly lucrative, successful wagers based on their proximity to power. Of course, you don't have to imagine these scenarios because they are already happening in real life."

Murphy stressed prediction markets will severely diminish our collective capacity for moral decision making: "What does it do to our soul, as human beings and as American citizens, when questions of life and death, misery and famine, war and peace, stop being matters of morality and become ways to cash in and make money? … I think the transformation of moral questions into financial questions hardens us to suffering, or at the very least, excuses us from grappling with the complicated questions of right and wrong in public decision making."

He continued: "I worry that something really important dies inside us when we stop thinking about the big questions of how to organize our collective economic and political life through a moral lens. I think we are built to be moral creatures; we naturally care deeply about the suffering of others. When we can make money off of that suffering, or simply view government decisions that cause suffering as a game that we wager on, it hollows us out in unseen ways."

Murphy argued prediction markets' growing popularity is a symptom of widespread disillusionment towards our political system: "Maybe there is so much interest in these novel markets because it's a way for increasingly powerless citizens to feel personally connected to the biggest public issues of the day. Maybe all this wagering on war is happening because people have lost faith that more traditional means of political involvement will have an impact."

Murphy concluded with a warning about the spiritual cost of prediction markets commodifying every aspect of our lives: "The damage these markets will do to us spiritually, as our national moral conversation degrades further and betting becomes an empty substitute for true civic participation, should concern us too. Not everything needs to be a commodity. There is not reason yet to give up on influencing government through traditional political action. Humans are built to feel and act on empathy, and to engage with our fellow citizens in common action. That is what makes us feel fulfilled and happy. Prediction markets threaten to rob us of that opportunity to think morally and act collectively. Before we choose to normalize their integration with public decision making, we should think hard about the spiritual cost on our already weary nation."

You can read the full Substack article here.