Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) wrote the law that lets US regulators ban sports-event contracts on prediction markets. Now she lobbies on the other side of that fight. Lincoln, who opposed sports-event contracts as a US senator in 2010, now lobbies in favor of sports gambling on prediction markets for her client, Kalshi.
In July 2010, during Senate debate on the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Lincoln warned that prediction markets could evade gambling laws by offering "event contracts" built around events such as the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby and the Masters golf tournament. "These types of contracts would not serve any real commercial purpose," she said. "Rather, they would be used solely for gambling."
Today, the firm Lincoln founded has received $480,000 from Kalshi since 2024 in exchange for lobbying Congress and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for looser regulation of event contracts. Lincoln, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee and a primary author of Title VII of Dodd–Frank, had defined "public interest" broadly enough to give the CFTC authority to ban sports bets offered as event contracts.
Congress left the final decision to the executive branch rather than banning such contracts outright. The Biden administration discouraged sports-event contracts, but the Trump administration has used Dodd-Frank authority to allow them and insists states cannot enforce their own gambling laws against prediction markets. Lawsuits in about 20 states now ask courts whether Congress intended to let states restrict these bets, and the Supreme Court is likely to decide whether the CFTC can preempt state regulation.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing