I originally wanted to try the latest Claude model, but before I could test it, it became unavailable. The U.S. government bans any foreign individuals and foreign employees from accessing Fable 5 and Mythos 5, two models claimed to be the most powerful in history.

Over the years, Silicon Valley has been telling the world’s smart people: "Just bring your brain, we don’t ask about your background." Now, passports carry more weight. Under the framework of national security, cutting-edge models are no longer seen as products but as weapons.
🎲 Today I want to talk about Jack Pot gambling culture. Americans like their lives to be full of randomness…
I’m fishing off Marina del Rey. Just boarded the boat, each person gets a number, and the captain asks me: "Want to spend $10 to join the Jackpot? Catch the biggest fish, and the entire prize pool is yours."
Jackpot doesn’t seem to be what I thought—"winning the big prize"—but rather the thrill of unexpected wealth. The term comes from poker in the 1870s, where no one could finish the game, and the pot kept rolling over, growing larger and larger, called a jack-pot.
This “bet on everything” gene permeates Americans’ daily lives. Colleagues like to bet on who’s late today, or whether you can lose a few kilos this year; the crazy March Madness in March sees legal bets totaling up to $3.3 billion nationwide, with office pools alone reaching about $7.7 billion and nearly 60 million participants.
The jackpot on the fishing boat, I think, is an offline prediction market.
Online, that’s Polymarket and Kalshi. Kalshi is a compliant prediction market regulated by the U.S. CFTC Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The legalization of 2024 election contracts has pushed its latest valuation to $22 billion. During the 2024 U.S. election, Polymarket alone had bets worth $3.3 billion on the “Trump vs. Harris” market. After obtaining a compliant license and returning to the U.S., its valuation rose to about $9 billion following investment from ICE, the parent company of the NYSE. From sports, cryptocurrencies, to elections and CPI data, Americans bet on everything—often not for money, but just for fun.
In fact, casinos originally served this purpose too. The world’s first regulated casino was Il Ridotto in Venice, established in 1638, essentially a social venue for aristocrats during carnival season.
So I can easily understand why prediction markets are quickly accepted, legalized, and regulated in the U.S.
Asia’s attitude toward “gambling” is almost the opposite.
Singapore allows foreign tourists to enter casinos for free with a passport, but local citizens and permanent residents must pay a daily entry tax of 150 SGD, along with a set of anti-addiction measures like self-exclusion, family exclusion orders, and visit limits—using systems to discourage gambling through regulation.
But Asians also love Jack Pot! Pop Mart’s blind boxes became a huge hit, driven by the same dopamine rush as slot machines. Just packaged as “consumption,” but the end result is the same.
💰 In America, everything has a different price.
As long as you pay, you can fly without ID. At the airport security line, the person in front of me paid $45 without any ID and was allowed through.
I fly JetBlue, and choosing any seat in advance costs money: $20 for a regular seat, $120 for an emergency exit seat. If you don’t choose a seat, you get randomly assigned at the gate. Not paying means waiting until boarding, and you might end up with a very expensive seat—that’s another kind of Jack Pot.
You can pay to secure a seat, or save money and gamble on luck.