You can now bet on the election. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
Late on Friday, a judge ruled in favor of the US-based predictions market Kalshi, overruling the CFTC, and allowing the platform to offer derivatives for betting on the upcoming US election in November, legally and without the use of shady circumvention devices such as VPNs.
The ruling has potentially monumental consequences, as last year US commodity regulator CFTC forbade Kalshi from listing the Congressional control contracts, on the grounds that they would amount to unlawful gaming and would be “contrary to the public interest.” Kalshi then sued, calling the regulator’s decision “arbitrary [and] capricious.”
Fast forward to Friday, when in a ruling handed by Judge Jia M. Cobb, of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, she sided with Kalshi: “For the reasons stated in the Court’s forthcoming memorandum opinion, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment … and DENIES Defendant’s cross motion for summary judgment,” Cobb wrote.
“Defendant’s September 22, 2023 order prohibiting Plaintiff from listing its congressional control contracts for trading is hereby VACATED.”
In response, the delighted Kalshi CEO, Tarek Mansour, said that “election markets are now legal in the United States for the first time in 100 years.
Variant Fund chief legal officer Jake Chervinsky stated in a Sept. 7 X post that it was a “HUGE win” for Kalshi, but he would like to see the judicial opinion first.
