In what? Source?
CFTC seems to be preëmpting state gambling laws under commodities regulation (specifically, as "excluded commodities"). That sounds, to me, like a major question. The sort Chevron deferred to regulators. The kind our current SCOTUS says should be decided by the Congress. To my knowledge, the Congress has said nothing about prediction markets. Which means it's in the domain of states.
Otherwise, fuck it, let's launch a prediction-market based national health insurance market. I'll sell you a contract that pays my medical bills if I have a health event.
[–] joshheitzman 4 days ago
[–] JumpCrisscross 4 days ago
DCMs are a creature of rule, not statute [1]. The statutes that animate it are the CFMA of 2000, Dodd-Frank "special rule" for event contracts and CEA § 5. The core question, whether the CFTC has the authority to regulate this kind of DCM, is still open.
> There is already a split decision on this between the 3rd and 9th circuits so it seems likely SCOTUS is going to take this up
Links to the split opinions?
[1] To be clear, DCMs are undefined in statute. DCMs are just referenced in other statute. Part 38 is an implementing regulation.
[–] joshheitzman 4 days ago
Seriously? That is easy to find, so I'm just going to skip past that to the petition to SCOTUS that references both: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/26/26-299/428759/2026...
[–] JumpCrisscross 4 days ago
If that's your only source, I'll rest my case–it make the argument cleanly.
[–] joshheitzman 4 days ago
Its seems like there is literally nothing you will accept to show that this isn't settled yet.
[–] JumpCrisscross 4 days ago
To the extent I’m challenging anything above, you’ll see it’s in rejecting anyone claiming this is obvious or settled.
[–] joshheitzman 4 days ago
[–] gamblor956 4 days ago
Predictions aren't swaps as defined by federal law. If they were, the term "swap" would be so broad that every transaction and exchange of value in the world would be within the CFTC's jurisdiction, excluding those the CEA gives to the SEC.
The only reason the prediction market hasn't already been shut down is because multiple members of the president's family are heavily invested in the industry.
[–] sidewndr46 4 days ago
[–] lo_zamoyski 4 days ago
So I wouldn’t be surprised under the right social and cultural conditions and the right people in power that it could become regarded as a protected liberty. It is rather frightening that this relativism – deprived of objective anchors and standards – doesn’t strike people as terrifying. Too many people take for granted the status quo they are accustomed to, or they are so fixated on satisfying some appetite du jour that they fail to grasp the waiting Dionysian fallout[0].
[0] https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/euripides-bacchae-sb/
[–] sidewndr46 4 days ago
My general position has been that the durability of the Bill of Rights is directly attributed to what you call "relativism". When the government finds the Bill of Rights to be unpleasant, they simply decide it never applied in the first place.
[–] JumpCrisscross 4 days ago
Wall Street has been trying to argue this for ages [1]. To date, it hasn't worked.
[1] https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2025/08/06/2...
Congress didn't identify the markets it was regulating by common names or trade names. It doesn't matter if its generally called a prediction market, a commodities market, or a futures exchange. What matters is if it qualifies as a Designated Contract Market as per https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-17/chapter-I/part-38 so if you want to actually have knowledge of what Congress said on this topic your going to have read all of that.
There is already a split decision on this between the 3rd and 9th circuits so it seems likely SCOTUS is going to take this up. I expect they'll be the ones deciding if this in the domain of the states or not. If they don't pick it up then its going to vary by circuit, such that it will be in the domain of some states and not others.