CFTC says court ‘erred at every turn’ in allowing Kalshi’s election markets

As a seasoned crypto investor with a keen interest in the intersection of finance and politics, I find myself closely following the ongoing legal battle between Kalshi and the CFTC. Having navigated through several regulatory hurdles in my own cryptocurrency ventures, I can empathize with the challenges Kalshi is facing.


As a researcher, I’m sharing my perspective on a statement regarding a legal dispute between Kalshi and the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In their argument, the CFTC contends that the district court judge made an error in every step of the process when they permitted Kalshi’s platform to list and trade election odds. This is according to the regulator’s stance on the matter.

In a submission made on October 16th to a court in Washington D.C., the Commodity Futures Trading Commission argued that the lower court had misinterpreted the clear definitions given in the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). This, they claimed, denied the regulatory body a valid reason to scrutinize certain types of transactions in a thorough manner.

The regulator contended that the court made an error, specifically a misunderstanding, regarding crucial aspects, when deciding if Kalshi could offer contracts for political events.

According to the CFTC, the court failed to consider or give importance to straightforward explanations of what qualifies as “gaming” or “event-centric” agreements or dealings when they permitted Kalshi to post election probabilities on their platform.

CFTC says court ‘erred at every turn’ in allowing Kalshi’s election markets

In November 2023, Kalshi filed a lawsuit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), seeking to reverse a ruling that forbade Kalshi from offering contracts based on political events.

In September, it was decided in favor of Kalshi in their lawsuit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). A federal court in Washington D.C. determined that the CFTC could not prohibit Kalshi from listing contracts for political elections.

On September 6, the CFTC filed an appeal and requested an immediate halt to Kalshi’s political contract listings, pending the resolution of their appeal.

On October 2nd, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the CFTC’s appeal, thereby allowing Kalshi to legally introduce markets for odds related to the US elections on October 7th.

After defeating the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Kalshi added numerous political wagering agreements to its platform. These include betting odds for the presidential election outcome, who will win the popular vote, and predicting which state will have the closest race result.

In their latest report, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has stated that Kalshi’s election contracts bear resemblance to gambling and recommended that they should not be allowed for listing within the United States.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission stated that Kalshi’s site will soon feature previews of other contracts, among which are what they call ‘parlays’ – a term commonly used in sports betting for multiple related bets on various election results – according to their announcement.

In a filing made on October 11th, the presiding judge has decided to speed up the delivery of the final verdict on the CFTC’s appeal. However, the CFTC will not need to submit their final arguments until December 6th, approximately a month after the election.

Because legal proceedings were ongoing, Kalshi had to stay out of action, allowing other betting markets like Polymarket to amass massive volumes of bets totaling billions of dollars.

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2024-10-18 06:50