00:00Some representatives around the country want some clarity about prediction markets and they want it from the CFTC. Are we
00:07in charge? Are you in charge? Who's making the decisions here? And, you know, quite frankly, I think that this
00:13is fair. We got to get some clarity as to if states can run it. Is the government going to
00:18run this thing? What exactly is the future hold?
00:22Yeah, it seems to only really be questions and questions and more questions right now, Craig, in this prediction market
00:29space, which there's three major developments this week in Washington, mainly, where it's becoming you notice it's becoming increasingly political.
00:39It's becoming increasingly charged. You're seeing, you know, last week you saw President Donald Trump take to social media to
00:47tout the CFTC's regulation or jurisdiction, rather, over prediction markets, allowing them to exist in all 50 states and allow
00:57people to basically do sports betting under these kind of different rules.
01:01Well, obviously, on the other side, you have all the states, I think, you know, almost 20 now suing to
01:06stop it. You had three Congress men and women this week, all Democrats, notably, asking the inspector general to investigate
01:14the agency, the CFTC, their legal rationale and the resources when it comes to prediction markets.
01:20This letter basically lays out, you know, under Trump's tenure, you know, you have to look at when sports event
01:28contracts became a thing.
01:29It was only three days after he was sworn into office. That's when Kalshi first launched sports event contracts.
01:36And, you know, kind of after that, everyone else followed. Now it's 85 percent of its business.
01:41This this letter kind of says since then, the CFTC has like rapidly expanded what it believes its jurisdiction to
01:49be.
01:49It obviously used to just be overseeing derivatives and financial trading futures of grains, a little betting.
01:57It says it's now expanded that, you know, rapidly into sports event contracts, which takes a lot of resources and
02:03time and dedication.
02:05Meanwhile, the agency just had major staff cuts. It's down about 30 percent since Trump took office.
02:11And it continues to launch these lawsuits, too. We've seen now the CFTC sue six states defending its jurisdiction to
02:19regulate these products.
02:20At the same time, the letter also lays out that it's actually walked back efforts to actually regulate them.
02:25So it basically says they're spending a lot of time and money and resources on defending the right to oversee
02:33the products while simultaneously not actually overseeing them.
02:37You know, obviously, there's been a number of, you know, high profile scandals or cases rather that's popped up in
02:43the space.
02:43And we've seen other lawmakers on Capitol Hill introduce bills to try to rein in the space at the same
02:50time this week.
02:52Also, Republicans from the House Financial Services Committee had a private meeting with Kalshi, Robin Hood and Polymarket, as well
03:00as the American Gaming Association,
03:02which has been very staunch against the allowing these products to do sports betting on their platforms.
03:09It was reportedly a private investigation, which came just a day after a report that former Congressman George Santos is
03:16now being investigated for allegedly betting that he would not attend the State of the Union address from the president
03:24earlier this year,
03:26but then bragging that he was going to.
03:28And then I think about three minutes into the speech, tweeting out that he had logistics problems.
03:32So now the Department of Justice is reportedly investigating him as well.
03:37You know, Trump pardoned him a couple of years ago after I think it was found that he lied about,
03:41you know, being a Wall Street traitor and he was, you know, kicked out of Congress.
03:44So we're this is all becoming more political and more questions are being asked.
03:49And right now there's not a lot of answers.
03:51I think kind of everyone is looking to the courts to figure that out.
03:54But at the same time, we have, you know, over a dozen lawsuits playing out across different states.
04:00And I don't know if we're going to get answers on this anytime soon,
04:03but it certainly looks like there's a lot more questions kind of every day in Washington.
04:06I wouldn't be surprised.
04:07Yeah.
04:08You know, in a month from now, when we come back talking about the next crazy development or ask or
04:13scandal,
04:14it's it just seems like it's happening every day now.
04:16It's pretty crazy.
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