00:00And we'll also track the progress of prediction markets, Kalshi, Polymarket, and others.
00:05A report over on the website that you guys are running, legalsportsreport.com.
00:11You could read more about this column.
00:13Sam, it doesn't appear that the train is stopping anytime soon.
00:16It feels like prediction markets, at least temporarily, are here to stay.
00:21Yeah, it's pretty hard to believe that it hasn't even been a full year since we started talking about this.
00:26Sports prediction markets were pretty much first offered around Super Bowl 59.
00:30Last February.
00:32So it's almost a year, but not quite yet, when companies like Kalshi and Robinhood came out with basically what a lot of states have now sued and said this is actually sports betting.
00:40These companies have contended that, no, it's not actually sports betting.
00:44It's a financial swap, which is subject to CFTC oversight over the Commodities Exchange Act.
00:50The CFTC for the past year has not had any leadership to really make a decision on this.
00:55Despite multiple state courts where these lawsuits are playing out, resulting in instances where judges are saying, listen, this is up for the CFTC to decide whether or not these are permissible event contracts or, indeed, these are not allowed and states have a right to sue under their sports betting laws.
01:11We now have a new leader of the CFTC.
01:14Michael Selig was nominated and accepted to chair it.
01:17But now that he's the leader, he has recently indicated that he will not make a decision on this and likely just leave it up to the courts.
01:24Definitely a very consequential decision either way.
01:28It looks like eventually it'll get worked out by the Supreme Court.
01:31That's kind of what everyone thinks will happen.
01:33But again, with that, it takes a lot of time.
01:35In the meantime, companies like Kalshi have taken $22 billion in betting volume just in the past year, which is over 100 times what they took last year.
01:4387% on that in sports.
01:45So this sector will keep growing while we will likely have more and more uncertainty throughout the rest of the year.
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