Readers Write: Prediction markets, elections, Dinkytown, Minnesota Rusco, soccer in Willmar

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Congressman Collin Peterson’s long service to Minnesota deserves recognition, but his recent defense of prediction markets gives me deep concern (“Prediction markets: futures markets of the 21st century,” Strib Voices, Nov. 3). These platforms aren’t helping people manage risk. In Minnesota — and across Indian Country — they represent something else: a direct challenge to state and tribal sovereignty.

For decades, tribes have operated gaming responsibly and transparently under the framework of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and state-tribal compacts. These agreements uphold our sovereign right to regulate gaming within our lands and ensure that the benefits — creating jobs, funding education, supporting infrastructure — flow back to our communities.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are offering more than just “financial tools.” They are insufficiently regulated betting operations masquerading as investments. By claiming federal jurisdiction through the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, they bypass the very state and tribal regulatory systems that protect consumers.

Minnesota’s tribes take deep pride in running one of the most well-regulated gaming industries in the country. And they’ve earned the public’s trust through decades of responsible oversight. Allowing federally sanctioned wagering undermines that system and threatens the integrity of lawful gaming everywhere.

This isn’t innovation — it’s intrusion. Upholding tribal sovereignty and consumer protection must come before the interests of these operators seeking loopholes in the law. The CFTC should remember why Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was implemented: to ensure strong oversight, local control and respect for sovereign authority.

The writer is chairman of the Indian Gaming Association.

No question the off-year elections were good news for Democrats (with the caveat that results were confined to a small number of small geographic regions that are, let’s just say, not traditional Republican strongholds). So what happens next? My prediction is that over the next two years we’re going to see an intense struggle for control of the Democratic Party. Old-school liberals (they call themselves “moderates” now) will battle it out with the Democratic Socialists of America over platforms and policies. I’ve heard some predict that the two factions will be able to compromise, but frankly, the DSA folks don’t seem to be in a mood for that. So I predict that, when the dust settles, we’ll have a Democratic Party that is either much like the party of old, because they’ll tell the DSA, ”You’re not welcome here; stand or fall on your own" (perhaps that’s what Republicans should have done with the Tea Party?). Or, the Democratic Party will be transformed into what Republicans have been claiming it is for decades — socialist.

Dan Beck, Lake Elmo

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I hope that with Tuesday’s election, Republican officeholders realize that Trump is dragging them all down. Instead of fearing being primaried from the right, they should be primaried from the center. I suspect that many in red districts cannot conceive of voting for anyone but Republicans, so they need non-MAGA candidates to challenge current Republican officeholders who feel safe and unaccountable to their constituents.

Karen Lilley, St. Paul

There are few moments in life more perspective-jolting than returning to your elementary school and visiting the restroom only to find a toilet so tiny it forces a philosophical inventory. Have I grown? Has the world shrunk?

Returning to Dinkytown after 10 years produced the same shock — except the urinals are now five-story, stick-built bricks with all the personality of a strip-mall insurance office.

I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2016 and hadn’t returned until this month. I arrived expecting nostalgia, maybe a warm glow, or at least the familiar scent of stale beer clinging to the sidewalks like morning dew. OK, it’s Minneapolis — frost. Instead, I found myself wandering through a forest of drywall and cement-coated Styrofoam. Suspiciously identical, conspicuously beige and disturbingly confident they’ll remain after a strong wind.

Dinkytown, once proudly dinky, now resembles a model at an overzealous developer’s office: clean, flat and emotionally vacant. Perhaps a rebrand is due. “American College-Student Dwelling Area Nestled in a Larger City” seems accurate if a bit wordy.

Blarney, Tony’s Diner and Al’s Breakfast stand, but for how long? Perhaps they too shall be reborn as apartments. Let’s slather on some EIFS, stack a few 2x4s, and pop it up 60 feet. Plenty of room to rent by the room to the financially uninformed and heavily indebted. Something new and shiny.

Maybe today’s students don’t miss what was lost. They have their own anchors, rituals and late-night haunts. Still, I left campus in mourning and with a lingering question:

If everything and everyone grows up, can anything stay dinky?

Barry Lytton, Westport, Conn.

Regarding the Minnesota Rusco bankruptcy and the many customers losing their large deposits, we’ve seen this story time and again with contactors taking deposits and not doing the work. I am an attorney and we also get large “deposits” (retainers) in advance of doing any work. We are required to put the deposits we receive into a trust account, and we cannot withdraw any funds from trust until we have earned the fee. The interest on those accounts goes to the state to support legal services for low-income people.

Dana McKenzie, Eagan

I don’t know much about soccer. I have never even read a sports story about soccer. But the photo and headline on last Sunday’s Star Tribune captured me (“‘We’re brothers. We’re meant to be on this team. Everyone is so connected, because we were all raised in Willmar,’“ Nov. 2). Once I started to read it, I couldn’t stop. The writing is riveting, and the subject matter includes so much more than sports. It is one of the best examples of the ramifications of our current immigration situation. Among the hardships faced by many newcomers to America, this story features a small Minnesota town’s welcoming embrace of new resident families from many different countries. It also lets us meet a great coach with a huge heart. It tells about team family dinners gather together to feast on foods from Somalia, Honduras, Myanmar and other countries.

The soccer season is over, but Sunday’s article may just get tempt me to go to Willmar next year to watch a game and thank the whole community for showing us the America we truly admire and love.