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Hell of a Loophole You've Got There
One way in which I am a puritanical joyless shrew is that I think gambling culture is making people more boring, enriching the already wealthy, and ultimately rotting our society from the inside out. But hey, people like it!
The thing is, sports betting is still illegal in Minnesota—ours is one of the few states that hasn't yet enshrined in law your ability to secretly blow the entirety of your family's savings on the outcome of the football game. (Sorry, sorry, not fun!) And yet...
For Axios Twin Cities, Nick Halter and Torey Van Oot report that you actually kind of can bet on sports in Minnesota these days thanks to prediction markets, which "essentially allow gamblers to wager on anything they could with a sportsbook—and more."
Kalshi and Polymarket are the big operators, but online sports betting platforms like FanDuel and DraftKings have also launched prediction markets. These companies claim it isn't the same as sports betting because you're buying shares, not unlike the stock market. (Which, famously, is definitely not a glorified white-collar casino.) More nastily, you can also bet on markets like "Will a federal agent be charged with a crime related to the shooting death of Alex Pretti?" and "What was U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar sprayed with at a recent town hall?" via Polymarket right now.
What was that thing I said about rotting our society from the inside out? Anyway...
Take a Look Inside 40 Worker-Run Newsrooms
It's quite possible that as the co-owner and editor of a non-traditional, worker-friendly newsroom, I'm overestimating your interest in non-traditional, worker-friendly newsrooms. But it's my Flyover news roundup and I'll get a little inside baseball if I want to, so prepare to learn a little more about Powering News.
Back in September, Tara Francis Chan, a co-founder of the staff-run nonprofit newsroom The Appeal, reached out to ask about Racket's interest in sharing a little bit about our structure and operations for a project she was working on. "Essentially I'm building a guidebook on how newsrooms can implement and troubleshoot worker-run structures, including policies and best practices," she wrote. We sure could have used something like that in Racket's infancy!
Francis Chan's resulting project launched today, with insights from nearly 40 publications—co-ops, staff-run nonprofits, and democratic newsrooms—as well as a quiz to help fledgling news orgs made decisions about their structure and a massive list of resources for finding vendors in bookkeeping, design, finance, and more.
Also, it must be said: It looks good as hell.
Your Thursday ICE Update
Here's the day in ICE-related headlines:
- MPR News's Jacob Aloi writes about how local D&D meetup Dungeons & Dragons & Drinks became a mutual aid hub. “I would really encourage anyone who's even remotely thought about maybe looking into D&D to come be a silly little wizard with us,” Kat Hennan says.
- Also for MPR News, Sam Stroozas has this heartbreaker about how pets are suffering during the continuing ICE surge.
- Where's that ICE relief concert money going? The Star Tribune's staffers wanna know how much Brandi Carlile, Motion City Soundtrack, and other artists have raised, as well as where those funds are being directed.
- In January and February, 911 dispatchers in Minneapolis fielded 6,000 more calls, or a nearly 10% increase from previous years, due to Operation Metro Surge. KSTP reports that the city has seen a drop in recent days; “There has been some relief, I would say, over the last week, week and a half," says Joni Hodne, director of the Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center.
How to Help: Neighbor-2-Neighbor Fund for Central
South Minneapolis's Central neighborhood has been absolutely fucked to hell by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, or, to quote more eloquent City Council Member Jason Chavez, "disproportionally impacted by ICE."
If you have the means, consider donating to the March Rent Neighbor-2-Neighbor Fund for Central Neighborhood on GoFundMe. The rent just never stops being due on the first of the month, and it's already almost the end of February. Volunteers overseeing the fund are hoping to raise $300,000, and right now they're only about a third of the way there.
A similar fundraising campaign in February exceeded its $300,00 goal. Let's help Central neighbors pay their bills for another month!
