WASHINGTON — American political junkies may get to bet tens of thousands of dollars legally on the outcome of November’s U.S. congressional elections.
After years of refusing to approve derivatives for betting on elections, Washington regulators are privately weighing a plan that could let people place as much as $25,000 on which political party will control the U.S. Congress. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission may begin taking public feedback on the proposal from prediction-market operator Kalshi Inc. as soon as this month, according to people with knowledge the deliberations.
A greenlight for Kalshi, which already offers so-called event contracts that let people wager on everything from President Joe Biden’s approval ratings to the next COVID-19 wave, would represent a shot in the arm for political gambling. Backers say the nascent industry can yield data that’s more accurate than opinion polling. But, the future of the whole sector in the U.S. was thrown into doubt recently when the CFTC revoked a regulatory permission that a popular Kalshi competitor called PredictIt had been using.
