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The CFTC on Friday has canceled its highly anticipated prediction markets roundtable.
The meeting was supposed to help clarify the future of event contracts, especially on sports and elections.
Kalshi, courts, and regulators are now left to sort the chaos.
In the meantime, one has to wonder how many new prediction markets, or pseudo prediction markets, will be emerging into the scene as this appears to be one of the most highly contested - with nearly zero competition - betting sectors.
Sports event futures contracts, also known as prediction markets, allow individuals to bet on event outcomes, such as elections, but more recently these have been applied to sporting events with sites like Kalshi not subject to state regulations and taxation. This has led to a handful of states sending out cease and desist letters. Kalshi has not sat back and kept quiet. The prediction market betting site has filed suits in Nevada and New Jersey. Tennessee became the latest site to place a target on Kalshi's head in recent days, though they stopped short of sending out cease and desist letters.
CFTC cancels its highly anticipated prediction markets roundtable
— Prediction News (@PredictionNews_) April 25, 2025
The meeting was supposed to help clarify the future of event contracts — especially on sports and elections.
Kalshi, courts, and regulators are now left to sort the chaos. pic.twitter.com/4IsiKx7X8m
Prediction News offered the following observation:
"With no roundtable, the question of who regulates event contracts is still wide open. Kalshi's sports markets are under fire, courts are circling, and cease-and-desists keep piling up. The CFTC punting this meeting? That’s a power move… or a panic."
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced its public roundtable back in February with the goal to develop a robust administrative record with studies, data, expert reports, and public input from a wide variety of stakeholder groups to inform the Commission’s approach to regulation and oversight of prediction markets, including sports-related event contracts.
The roundtable was slated to be held in the Conference Center at the CFTC's headquarters at Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st Street N.W., Washington, D.C.
“Unfortunately, the undue delay and anti-innovation policies of the past several years have severely restricted the CFTC’s ability to pivot to common-sense regulation of prediction markets,” said Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham back in February. “Despite my repeated dissents and other objections since 2022, the current Commission interpretations regarding event contracts are a sinkhole of legal uncertainty and an inappropriate constraint on the new Administration. Prediction markets are an important new frontier in harnessing the power of markets to assess sentiment to determine probabilities that can bring truth to the Information Age. The CFTC must break with its past hostility to innovation and take a forward-looking approach to the possibilities of the future.
“As the preeminent federal regulator mandated to oversee the $400 trillion notional derivatives markets that drive the real economy and safeguard the public interest, the CFTC is required to follow the rule of law and the Administrative Procedure Act to change course. This roundtable is a necessary first step in order to establish a holistic regulatory framework that will both foster thriving prediction markets and protect retail customers from binary options fraud such as deceptive and abusive marketing and sales practices. The CFTC appreciates the proactive engagement from market participants and looks forward to working together to support innovation while ensuring robust customer protection in our markets.”
