1. CFTC-State Prediction Market Battle Intensifies with the CFTC Filing a Sixth Circuit Amicus Brief and State Crackdowns Multiplying
The federal-state confrontation over Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission)-registered prediction markets escalated on multiple fronts in the first half of May. On May 12, the CFTC filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in KalshiEx LLC v. Matthew T. Schuler, et al., No. 26-3196, reasserting the Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets and outlining how the comprehensive federal regulatory scheme preempts state laws as applied to CFTC-regulated markets. The Commission framed the filing as “another step in the CFTC’s broader effort to protect its jurisdiction over prediction markets from an ongoing campaign of state encroachment.”