One of the biggest controversies in the US-facing gaming industry is an influx of businesses, such as contracts markets, that operate in loopholes that sidestep the traditional licensing process. AS the fight heats up each side is lining up its allies and girding for a fierce fight. Earlier this week, a coalition of free-market supporters sent a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) supporting predictions markets and urging the Commission to fully validate their place in the gaming ecosystem.
The letter was signed by a laundry list of conservative economic groups including:
Americans for Tax Reform, Advocacy Forum, 60 Plus Association, American Association of Senior Citizens, American Commitment, Americans for Limited Government, Center for Freedom and Prosperity, Center for a Free Economy, Center for Individual Freedom, The Committee for Justice, The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, Institute for Liberty, Market Institute, and the Southwest Public Policy Institute.
Just so that there was no confusion about the right wing nature of their plea, the letters’ authors came out gunning saying, “As leaders of conservative and free-market groups, we believe that government should not stand in the way of innovative information services.”
“We ask that, in contrast to the CFTC under the Biden administration, the CFTC in this new administration adopt a policy of permissionless innovation toward prediction market venues. “We believe that to fully reverse the Biden CFTC’s damage, the CFTC must affirm now that prediction markets dealing with elections and other current events are allowable as futures trading venues under federal law,” they added.
There’s not much doubt that the predictions market is going to get kid glove treatment from the CFTC given the fact that the incoming CFTC Chair is Brian Quintenz, a former Kalshi Board Member and close personal friend of Donald Trump Jr. Still, the fight over these unlicensed gambling products continues in states like Nevada, where their threat to the regulated gaming business is both real and acknowledged.