Senate hearing on sports betting shows CFTC should not regulate gambling
(PRESS RELEASE) -- Benjamin Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy for Better Markets, issued the following statement following a Senate hearing on sports betting:
“When Americans wager on Kalshi and Polymarket on the outcome of hockey or football games, they overwhelmingly view it as sports betting, not trading in financial derivatives. They recently made this view known to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), filing hundreds of letters explaining that, from the public’s perspective, these event contracts are gambling products. Policymakers should heed this perspective. Fortunately, they are.
“Today, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on regulating sports betting. At the hearing, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators struggled to understand how sports event contracts, which allow people to wager on the outcome of a sporting event, are not gambling. Senator Curtis said his constituents in Utah, if they heard how these event contracts work, would say, ‘tell me how that is not gambling.’ Senator Rosen said that ‘if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.’ These views reflect the fact that anyone who goes on Kalshi or Polymarket can see for themselves that they offer individuals the ability to bet on sports. And that is how event contracts on sporting events must be regulated—not as a financial derivative but as gambling.
“What is also clear is that the CFTC is ill-equipped to regulate event contracts on sporting events. It has lost over 20% of its staff since 2024. One witness at the hearing noted that the CFTC has fewer staff than the regulators in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Moreover, it has no experience in regulating sports betting. The CFTC regulates the derivatives market. That is critical to the lives of all Americans, as a well-regulated derivatives market ensures Americans receive fair prices set by supply and demand for essential goods such as food, gas, and electricity. A CFTC that attempts to pretend that event contracts on sporting events are a financial derivative and not gambling betrays its core mission. Regulators are already blurring the line between investing and gambling, and treating event contracts on sporting events as anything other than gambling will only further blur that line and harm Americans.
https://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article/senate-hearing-on-sports-betting-shows-cftc-should-not-regulate-gambling-263452