JetBlue Airways faces stringent scrutiny after a Jewish passenger, who was traveling to Las Vegas, was allegedly discriminated against by crew members. Paul Faust, a 54-year-old telecom entrepreneur from Parkland, Florida, got involved in the controversial exchange as he voiced his objections against a flight attendant’s display of a “Free Palestine” pin during the flight.

Paul Faust’s JetBlue Encounter Goes From Discomfort to Confrontation

According to Paul Faust, the incident began as mere discomfort but gradually escalated to outright confrontation, reported Daily Mail. It all started with Faust observing that the flight attendant is wearing several pins on her uniform, including one with the Palestine flag and the slogan “Free Palestine,” alongside a Black Lives Matter badge. 

Initially, Faust did not make any comments about it but after the flight attendant moved the “Free Palestine” pin prominently and deliberately to her apron when serving coffee and drinks Faust decided to speak up. However, all Faust did was mention the situation with the pin to the flight supervisor.

To his surprise, the situation escalated after the plane landed as an official from JetBlue made accusations that Faust has caused a disturbance during the flight. Eventually, even Las Vegas law enforcement was involved.

Faust insisted that he had not engaged in any disruptive behavior on the plane, however, his statement remained unheard. In the end, Faust’s return flight was canceled by JetBlue and the airline even banned him from any future travel on its flights. The company cited his non-compliance with crew instructions as the reason for the ban.

Following the JetBlue incident Faust has referred to it as an act of “blatant antisemitism”. His fellow passenger Rachelle Almagor also commented on the incident confirming Faust’s version of the sequence of events that took place. She also mentioned that she felt discomfort in connection with the flight attendant’s “Free Palestine” pin and its prominent display.

As a result of the allegations, JetBlue has ordered an internal investigation. The airline extended its apologies to Faust and referred to the incident as a breach of company policies. Additionally, the airline has initiated a revision of its pin policy, aiming to facilitate a respectful environment for all passengers and crew members. Social media is afire with criticism toward JetBlue Airways following the incident. The majority of posts are in support of Paul Faust and are calling for a boycott of JetBlue.

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The majority of people who are in this group would benefit from level 2 intensity treatment the government argues, or some 970,000 people. This means that the people in question would benefit from two or three sessions of motivational interviewing which is administered by gambling specialists.

Treatment Levels Vary By Intensity, But They Do Have an Effect

Some 243,000 adults, though, would need a level 4 intensity treatment, the government specifies, as this is designed to be a far more comprehensive and demanding treatment course with 8 to 14 sessions which are administered by cognitive behavioral therapy psychologists, who specialize in gambling disorder.

Furthermore, another 40,000 individuals would need a 12-week residential treatment program, which is the most intensive form of care. There is no exact way to tell which people will benefit from what program exactly, as practitioners must also play a role in deciding, but the government’s estimates offer robust guidance.  

The data was commissioned by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and conducted by the University of Sheffield and the University of Glasgow. It’s an interesting research and approach, as it directly seeks to quantify how many people would benefit from treatment.

Not only that but owing to this data, government and industry groups can calculate the costs of such interventions. Although the exact costs of these sessions are not exactly established, they would give the government a rough estimate of what is needed to address the issue.

Of course, if people are actively receiving treatment, they would have to be followed up to see if the treatment was efficient. There are several reasons to be optimistic, however, as GambleAware recently shared its optimism that interventions are having a positive impact.

Focus the Funds Where They Are Needed the Most

This means that treatment and interventions are efficient even if they cost money. Then again, there is the proposed rise of a gambling levy that would go directly to charities and treatment service providers, designed to ensure that individuals who need gambling treatment get it.

More importantly, UKGC’s latest data will allow the efforts to be focused. Earlier interventions and treatments to more people are more cost-efficient it seems, and they may even be administered in groups.

As GambleAware found out, treatment helps 9 out of 10 people, so all the more reason to seek and ensure that these solutions reach people.

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American gambling giant DraftKings served as a member of Polygon Labs’ validator community. What the latter company did not disclose, though, is that the operator was not truly an “equal member” of the community.

As outlined in a report by CoinDesk, a crypto news outlet, Polygon had signed a deal that was incredibly lucrative to DraftKings. For reference, DraftKings became one of Polygon Labs’ validators in early 2022, marking the first time a big publicly traded firm has taken a role in blockchain governance.

CoinDesk reviewed dozens of on-chain records related to the company’s validator program to better understand the situation.

The reviewed data showed that Polygon provided DraftKings with millions of dollars of crypto back in 2021. While the news outlet could not confirm whether DraftKings had purchased these tokens, it added that the operator also earned millions through its special validator deal.

CoinDesk added that this deal provides a “rare window” into an arrangement that was not publicly disclosed.

Polygon Treated DraftKings Differently

As mentioned, DraftKings was not an equal member of Polygon’s validator community and was compensated much better than other members. Despite that, DraftKings’ validator eventually shut down.

As one of Polygon’s validators, DraftKings was supposed to lend computing power to its network and verify transactions on the platform. Validators a rewarded by automatically getting sent Polygon’s crypto token, MATIC, in a process known as staking.

Validators can stake MATIC tokens to earn more tokens. In the meantime, MATIC owners who do not have their own validators can delegate their tokens to others for a commission of 5%-10% of the rewards earned from those tokens.

However, DraftKings instead charged a 100% commission, depriving small delegators of MATIC tokens. In addition, the gambling company grew as one of Polygon’s largest validators. Needless to say, this deal was very unusual even within the Web3 sector.

CoinDesk learned that DraftKings’ validator benefitted from MATIC tokens delegated by Polygon and took a 100% commission on a very big tranche. Over the last year, DraftKings’ validator was staking 65.5 million MATIC tokens, 91% of which had been delegated to it by Polygon.

CoinDesk also discovered that DraftKings had staked the initial 2.5 million MATIC tokens it received from Polygon. The operator received these tokens in October 2021 and, soon after that, opened a Polygo-based NFT marketplace and agreed to run a validator. When DraftKings officially became a validator, it announced that it would stake “assets it holds in its treasury,” without specifying that it received those tokens from Polygon.

DraftKings Amassed Huge Rewards Thanks to the Treatment

As mentioned previously, the special treatment of DraftKings was not something Polygon disclosed and it actively contradicted its claim that DraftKings would be an equal member of the validator community.

By the end of the partnership, DraftKings had been delegated 60 million MATIC to help it earn more rewards. Prior to the validator’s fall from grace in October this year, DraftKings withdrew a total of 3.2 million MATIC, worth approximately $2 million and, thanks to Polygon’s special treatment, had amassed more in personal rewards than any other member of the validator community.

Evidently, DraftKings’ gain was another validator’s loss since the network issues only a finite number of MATIC tokens a year.

On November 7, the FTX scandal led to a wave of distrust in the crypto sector. Coincidentally, this date also marked the last time DraftKings staked its new MATIC rewards and opted to withdraw them from that point on.

In September, DraftKings’ validator began to underperform. After three notices, it was shut down for failing to meet its requirements. Polygon then moved its 60 million delegated MATIC tokens to a different validator with zero fees.

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Daily Mail and Daily Express reported that the UK Government is planning to introduce a new levy on gambling companies to fund treatment programs for those addicted to gambling, with the proceeds being directed toward the National Health Service (NHS). 

Proposed New Levy to Prevent Firms from Exploiting Loopholes in Gambling Contributions

The proposed new levy is designed to create a standardized payment to prevent firms from exploiting loopholes to avoid making sufficient contributions. The Gambling Commission will be responsible for launching a consultation to decide how the levy should be tailored to different firms’ profits and revenues. This move comes following a record GBP19.2 million ($23.6 million) fine that was recently imposed on William Hill by the industry watchdog for failing to prevent customers from accruing unpayable debts. 

The NHS will not accept voluntary donations from gambling firms because it considers them a conflict of interest. The UK Government is expected to publish a gambling white paper soon, the most comprehensive review of betting laws in over 15 years, with the aim of ensuring that current regulations are fit for the digital age. 

The government wants to allow people the freedom to gamble responsibly while preventing harmful and addictive gambling, and it believes that a new levy will be a vital tool in achieving this aim. The levy will create long-term, reliable funding for treatment services, as many researchers do not accept voluntary funding from the gambling industry due to concerns over the independence of the research. 

Betting and Gaming Council Defends Gambling Industry Amidst Proposed Levy

The proposed levy could face opposition from some quarters, however. Reports suggest that Rishi Sunak, the current UK Prime Minister and former Chancellor, was previously against the idea of a levy. The suggestion is that he saw it as a new “nanny state” tax on business, and was concerned that it would harm the racing industry, given the existence of the Catterick racecourse in his constituency. There are also questions about whether the National Lottery will have to make similar contributions. 

The Betting and Gaming Council, which represents gambling firms, has said that the majority of people who gamble do so safely and responsibly and that the rate of problem gambling is very low, at just 0.2% of adults. The industry has committed to investing GBP100 million ($123 million) to tackle gambling-related harm, as well as making donations of GBP110 million ($135.4 million).

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