News Summary

• Gary Gensler, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, joined a number of interest groups in arguing that prediction markets are overstepping their bounds.
• The question at the heart of the case — whether sports-related events contracts are actually federally regulated swaps or are just sports gambling dressed up as a novel financial product — has consumed courts across the country.
• A number of states have sued prediction market providers, arguing that these companies are violating state regulations by failing to register as gambling platforms.
• If the CFTC is successful in convincing courts, and ultimately the u.s. Supreme Court, that it's right, states stand to lose significant amounts of tax revenue.