regulation and policy

U.S. CFTC seeks event contract definitions that may defy states' gambling claims

13Importance
closedStatus
8News media
9Pieces
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7 new reports

The CFTC sent two event-contract rulemakings to White House review on Sept. 28, with one proposal to treat event contracts as swaps and another to keep casino-style gambling products outside the swap definition. The filings are still pending, and states remain in court over prediction-market operators and gambling claims.

Key claims & sources

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One of the proposals would place event contracts inside the swap definition.
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The other proposal would exclude casino-style gambling products from the swap definition.
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The CFTC sent two event-contract rulemakings to the White House for review on Sept. 28.
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The proposals are tied to a broader dispute over prediction markets and state gambling claims.
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The proposals were filed with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

What it means

Users and operators in prediction markets are the immediate audience for these filings, because the rules sit in review while the legal lines around event contracts are being drawn. State regulators and market participants will notice that the CFTC is pressing for a federal definition that reaches event contracts and leaves casino-style gambling products outside it.

In practice, the filings would change where event contracts sit under federal rules by placing them in the swap category, while the separate interim rule would keep casino-style gambling products out of that category. What has not changed yet is the legal status of the proposals themselves, since they remain pending and are not final rules. (per tokenpost.com)

Still open is how the White House review will treat the two proposals and how the related court fight over prediction markets and gambling claims will fit with them. The filings show the text sent to OIRA, but they do not settle whether either rule will be adopted in its current form.

Market reaction i

Total crypto marketall crypto assets combined no single asset in the event: read against the whole market
first headline
-0.8% 2 h before
-0.4% 4 h after
$2.9Tmarket cap at publication
12data points

The move was larger before the first headline than after. That is an observation, not an explanation: the market also moves on things nobody publishes.

Coverage timeline

Every piece in order, with the time its news medium declares — if it is not believable we use ours and say so — and what it added to what was already known at that point. Arriving first is not the same as adding something.

+6 min
Sep 30 15:25
Crypto Briefing context
Its angle: potentially, centralize, reshaping
+1 h 32 m
Sep 30 16:51
Unchained context
Its angle: economically, significant, description; with quotes
+2 h 35 m
Sep 30 17:54
+3 h 20 m
Sep 30 18:39
Decrypt echo
No new facts: operators, excluding, cement; with quotes
+4 h 55 m
Sep 30 20:14
Crypto Briefing echo
No new facts: boundaries, impacting, control
+9 h 3 m
Oct 1 00:22
Crypto Economy echo
No new facts: implementation, decentralized, specifically
+9 h 48 m
Oct 1 01:07
Cointelegraph echo
No new facts: classification, regulated, offered
+18 h 56 m
Oct 1 10:15
crypto.news echo
No new facts: september, earlier, labeled

Has this happened before?

WhenWhat happenedFigure
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39 days ago SEC and CFTC Push Forward on Crypto Rules: What Bitcoin, XRP and Altcoin Holders Must Know event 1 actors in common · 2 news media
39 days ago SEC Says Token Buybacks and Network Upgrades Don’t Automatically Make Crypto Securities event 1 actors in common · 8 news media
42 days ago CFTC Charges Cash FX Group S.A., and CEO; Three Others With $950 Million Fraud Scheme event 1 actors in common · 5 news media