- Cortez Masto’s X post says CFTC Chairman Michael Selig wants companies to keep offering bets courts have blocked, and it points to Trump family stakes.
- A Nov. 5 CFTC release sets a 30-day clock for exchanges to drop in-country geographic limits or tell the agency why they cannot.
- Neither document mentions court orders, though a Nevada court enjoined Kalshi’s sports, election and entertainment contracts May 18.
- Nevada’s response to Crypto.com’s U.S. Supreme Court petition is now due Dec. 7 after an extension granted Monday.
WASHINGTON – Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said Monday that Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig is pushing prediction market companies to keep taking bets that courts have barred. Her post on X landed four days after the agency told exchanges to drop location-based trading limits inside the United States within 30 days.
“Federal courts have ruled repeatedly that states and tribes regulate gambling within their territory,” Cortez Masto wrote on X. The CFTC chairman, she added, is urging companies to keep taking those bets despite the orders. Her post calls the Trump family “heavily invested” in prediction market platforms and says the move is meant to profit the president’s relatives. The Nevada Gaming Control Board said in a July 24 release that the First Judicial District Court barred Kalshi from offering sports, election and entertainment contracts in the state on May 18.
What The CFTC Interpretation Says
The rule the Nov. 5 interpretation reads, Regulation 38.151(b), tells each designated contract market to grant its members, and anyone else holding trading privileges, “competitive, open, fair, and impartial access.”
Under the agency’s release on the impartial access interpretation, an exchange has 30 days either to drop any domestic geographic restriction that breaches the rule or to tell the Division of Market Oversight why it cannot. The same window covers intermediaries: an exchange must see that brokers and other middlemen are not blocking access, or explain the obstacle.
Derivatives markets “must operate on a uniform basis at a national scale,” Selig said in the release, and geographic limits, in his words, cut against the Commodity Exchange Act. On enforcement, the release says only that the commission “will consider the facts and circumstances of any particular case.”
Neither the release nor the interpretation refers to any court order, state gambling law or named exchange. The text instead argues that location-based limits fragment liquidity and cites sports contracts as one example, saying that excluding regions with heavy interest in a home team’s playoff run could reduce a contract’s overall liquidity.
Trump Family Ties And The Senate
Kalshi and Polymarket both count Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, and 1789 Capital, the venture firm where he is a partner, holds a Polymarket stake, the companies have announced. Cortez Masto’s post comes six days after Democrats won Senate control in the Nov. 3 midterms. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has pressed Kalshi and Polymarket on election trading, is the expected Senate Banking chair.
Courts Have Split
Courts have not ruled in one direction. The Ninth Circuit ruled against Crypto.com in its Nevada case on Aug. 28, according to the Supreme Court docket, while U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez enjoined Minnesota’s prediction market ban on July 27 in a suit the CFTC brought with Kalshi and Polymarket.
In Nevada, Kalshi settled the board’s contempt motion with a July 23 agreement that set an Aug. 12 geofencing deadline backed by a $120,000 daily penalty. Board Chairman Mike Dreitzer said in the July 24 release that the board had restricted every unlicensed prediction market known to operate in Nevada, where legal sports betting requires a state license.
Supreme Court Deadline
The Supreme Court’s docket shows an extension was granted Monday, moving Nevada’s deadline to respond to the petition Crypto.com filed Sept. 11 seeking review of the Aug. 28 ruling in North American Derivatives Exchange v. Nevada, No. 26-344, from Nov. 16 to Dec. 7.
