All of this will come as news to most Americans, given that stock speculation is clearly a form of gambling. In fact, former derivatives traders have gone on record as saying there’s no difference between Las Vegas Blvd. and Wall Street. But apparently the distinction is a bit too blurry for NYSE honchos. Just as Chris Rock felt the need to remind club patrons that there was no sex in the champagne room, so the NYSE needs to clarify that the NYSE doesn’t tolerate any kind of gambling that they don’t already tolerate. Filling out a March Madness bracket? Shameful. Singlehandedly destroying the global economy? Now you’re talking!
So what’s a lowly stock trader to do when he or she gets bored with assisting amoral hedge fund managers in bringing about ‘creative destruction’? Fortunately, online casino turnkey developer Elray Gaming has ridden to the rescue with plans for “fantasy” stock market and forex (foreign currency exchange) applications. Elray claims to be finalizing a joint venture with an unnamed “global financial service provider” on a real-money financial trading platform, but only the play-money version will be available to US residents until the DoJ’s ‘clarification’ of the Wire Act gets, um, clarified a little more. Elray’s social networking games will be accessible via the web and mobile devices, but traders may want to play outside on the NYSE steps, just so they don’t confuse their ‘fantasy’ trades with their ‘real’ ones. Oops, there goes Greece… My bad.