SiaPredict Blog
Analysis on US prediction-market regulation: CFTC rulemaking, state enforcement, and the legal fights shaping the industry.
From Dated to Perpetual: CFTC Relief for Security Index Futures
On October 5, 2026 the CFTC's Division of Market Oversight announced no-action relief, requested by Coinbase Derivatives, letting exchanges remove expiration dates from perpetual-style security index futures. The conditions are procedural, and the relief expires October 20.
October 19, 2026Missouri's Deadline Passes: Two Exchanges Sue, Four Hold Off
Crypto.com's exchange and Novig sued Missouri officials in federal court ahead of the October 17 cease-and-desist deadline, while Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood and Underdog had not filed as of October 18. Here is what each side argues and why the split matters.
October 19, 2026How Supreme Court Cert Review Works, and Where No. 26-299 Stands
The Court takes few petitions, and Rule 10 says why. This explainer walks through the cert stages and maps them onto New Jersey's petition in Flaherty v. KalshiEX.
October 15, 2026Michigan's Stipulations: Exiting a State Without Conceding the Law
Robinhood and Coinbase each agreed to stop sports event contracts in Michigan while preserving their preemption defenses. Here is how a stipulated standstill works and what it does and does not settle.
October 15, 2026Who Filed in Flaherty v. KalshiEX: The Supreme Court Amicus Wave
The NFL, a 39-state coalition led by Ohio, Gary Gensler and Chris Dodd have all urged the Supreme Court to hear New Jersey's petition in No. 26-299. Here is who filed, what they argued, and what comes next.
October 15, 2026CFTC's Two October 9 Rules: One Proposed, One Already Final
The CFTC issued a proposed rule adding event contracts to the definition of swap and an interim final rule excluding casino-style gambling from it. They share a topic but carry very different legal weight and timelines.
October 15, 2026The No Betting on Your Own Race Act: What It Would Ban and How It Compares
Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) introduced a bill on October 6, 2026 barring federal candidates and their families from trading prediction-market contracts on their own races. It sits alongside Rep. Bryan Steil's June proposal covering members of Congress.
October 8, 2026Ohio Targets Ten Prediction-Market Operators After the Sixth Circuit Win
Days after the Sixth Circuit's September 25 ruling, the Ohio Casino Control Commission told ten operators to stop offering sports event contracts in Ohio by October 16, 2026. Kalshi was not among the recipients.
October 8, 2026CFTC's Two Event-Contract Swap Rules Reach the White House
On September 28, 2026 the CFTC sent OMB a proposed rule defining event contracts as swaps and an interim final rule excluding casino-style gambling products. Here is what each rule does, what happens next, and why the circuit split makes the timing consequential.
October 6, 2026Insider Trading on Prediction Markets: What the CFTC's Two Orders Show
The CFTC's orders against George Santos and a former White House teleprompter operator apply existing derivatives law to event contracts. They show two distinct theories, manipulation and misappropriation, and both began as Kalshi referrals.
October 6, 2026Why State Regulators Are Quitting NCPG Over Kalshi's $2M Deal
Since the National Council on Problem Gambling accepted a two-year, $2 million Kalshi commitment in May 2026, regulators in Michigan, Ohio, Nevada and Washington have left and its executive director has resigned. Here is the timeline and what it signals for operators.
October 6, 2026Coinbase Clearing's DCO Approval: What It Changes for Event Contracts
The CFTC approved Coinbase Clearing LLC as a derivatives clearing organization on September 28, 2026, limited to fully collateralized products. The approval gives Coinbase an in-house settlement layer, but leveraged products and single-stock perpetuals still clear elsewhere.
October 6, 2026Hyperliquid HIP-4: Permissionless Prediction Markets Outside the CFTC
Hyperliquid will let any developer deploy a prediction market by staking 500,000 HYPE, with slashing for badly defined or mis-settled markets. The design sits outside the CFTC-regulated perimeter that governs DCM-listed event contracts.
October 5, 2026CFTC Reviews Kalshi's Ether Perpetuals Over $5B Trading Pattern
The CFTC is reviewing nearly one million near-identical trades on Kalshi's ether perpetual market, together worth more than $5 billion, before deciding whether the pattern amounts to wash trading. Kalshi says no formal investigation has been opened and attributes the pattern to its own market-maker incentive program.
October 2, 2026Congress and Prediction Markets: Four Oversight Fronts in a Week
Between September 21 and 29, 2026, House Oversight, Senate Banking Democrats, a Senate Judiciary request and a new gambling-reform campaign each targeted prediction markets. None has produced binding law, but each signals a different path to it.
October 1, 2026DCO Explained: The License Prediction-Market Exchanges Also Need
A Designated Contract Market lets an exchange list event contracts, but a separate Derivatives Clearing Organization registration is what actually lets it settle trades and hold collateral, a second CFTC license every major prediction-market operator has had to build, buy, or borrow alongside its DCM.
September 30, 2026Kalshi's Supreme Court Case Now Has a Docket Number: No. 26-299
The Supreme Court docketed New Jersey's certiorari petition against Kalshi as No. 26-299 on September 8, 2026, and later gave Kalshi until November 9 to respond, the first case in the prediction-markets litigation wave to reach a formal Supreme Court briefing schedule.
September 30, 2026When a Tax Becomes a Ban: CFTC's Fight Over Illinois and Kentucky
The CFTC's lawsuits against Illinois and Kentucky rest on a legal theory distinct from its state gambling-law preemption suits elsewhere: that a per-wager tax steep enough functions as a disguised ban on federally regulated event contracts, preempted by the Commodity Exchange Act regardless of how a legislature labels it.
September 25, 2026Kalshi Klear's Margin Filing: What Regulation 40.5 Requires
Kalshi's clearinghouse has asked the CFTC to approve letting institutional participants trade certain event contracts on margin instead of full collateral, a request that must clear a Commission-approval process reserved for rule changes an exchange expects will draw scrutiny. Sports, mention, and culture markets are excluded from the proposal entirely.
September 24, 2026What Counts as a 'Passive Software Provider' Under CFTC Rules
A pair of 2026 CFTC staff no-action letters lets 'passive software providers' connect users to already-registered brokers and exchanges without registering as an introducing broker themselves, a distinction now underpinning how tribal, fantasy-sports, and neobroker apps distribute prediction-market contracts they do not list on their own.
September 23, 2026Polymarket's Fraud Response Shows the Cost of Growth-First Compliance
A Wall Street Journal investigation reports that Polymarket's CEO told staff to prioritize growth over a February 2026 stolen-card fraud wave, a decision that preceded a compliance officer's resignation and a rebuild of the company's compliance leadership through the rest of the year.
September 22, 2026Perpetual Futures Explained: Crypto's Contract Comes to Kalshi
Perpetual futures, a crypto-native contract with no expiration date, arrived in CFTC-regulated markets for the first time in May 2026, and Kalshi's rapid expansion of the format into metals, and now proposed single-stock contracts, is already testing how regulators and outside analysts measure activity in it.
September 21, 2026Kalshi's Tribal Strategy: One Partnership, Two Circuit Losses
Kalshi signed a revenue-sharing deal with the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana four days after the Ninth Circuit ruled against it in a separate case brought by two California tribes, exposing a strategy of partnering with some tribal nations while litigating against others over the same underlying legal theory.
September 21, 2026Inside the Rush to Register as a Prediction-Market FCM
At least fourteen companies, from Kalshi's own affiliate to sweepstakes-sportsbook pivots and standalone infrastructure providers, have registered or filed to register as a futures commission merchant for prediction markets since March 2026, and the reasons fall into three distinct categories.
September 21, 2026CME in Court, Citadel at the SEC: Two Fronts Against Kalshi's Perpetuals
CME Group's lawsuit over Kalshi's bitcoin perpetual futures and Citadel Securities' letter asking the SEC to claim jurisdiction over equity-linked event contracts both challenge the CFTC's fast-track approval process, through different legal doctrines, within weeks of each other.
September 17, 2026What Makes a Contract a 'Swap,' and Why Every Kalshi Case Turns on It
A single, decades-old statutory definition of 'swap' in the Commodity Exchange Act decides whether a state can enforce its gambling law against a prediction-market contract at all, and federal courts are now splitting over how to apply it.
September 17, 2026How Geofencing Works, and Why Regulators Keep Calling It Broken
State courts have repeatedly found prediction-market operators' geofencing insufficient, and the EU's securities regulator raised the same concern in September 2026. The technology behind location-based compliance, and its well-known limits, explain why.
September 17, 2026Field Preemption vs. Conflict Preemption: Why Every Kalshi Suit Turns on It
Nearly every state lawsuit against a prediction-market operator comes down to whether the Commodity Exchange Act occupies the field of event-contract regulation or merely conflicts with a specific state rule, two distinct preemption theories that have split federal courts across at least seven circuits.
September 15, 2026CFTC Self-Certification Under Rule 40.2: How It Works, and Its Limits
Rule 40.2 lets a CFTC-registered exchange list a new contract the next business day without regulatory approval, the mechanism behind nearly every prediction-market product launch, and the one the CFTC has now twice warned exchanges are stretching too far.
September 14, 2026Kalshi's Gold and Silver Perpetuals Are Its First Non-Crypto Bet
Kalshi's September 2026 launch of CFTC-cleared perpetual futures on gold and silver extends a contract format built for bitcoin into commodities for the first time, with equity-index, copper, and currency perpetuals already filed and a jurisdictional fight over single-stock versions building behind it.
September 14, 2026How the EU, UK, and Canada Are Responding to Kalshi and Polymarket
US prediction-market operators face three different postures abroad in September 2026: the EU's securities regulator says they lack the authorization to operate at all, the UK's FCA is quietly exploring an exception to a binary-options ban it still publicly defends, and Canada permits a narrow, already-carved-out slice of Kalshi's catalog through a single licensed dealer.
September 14, 2026Underdog Dropped Fantasy Licenses in 7 States, Then Sued 5
Underdog surrendered its daily fantasy sports licenses in seven states on September 5, 2026 to preserve its CFTC-regulated prediction market, then sued five other states over the identical preemption theory three days later.
September 11, 2026What CFTC Emergency Authority Is, and Why Kalshi Triggered It Twice
The CFTC invoked its rarely used Section 8a(9) emergency authority against a Michigan court order in July and again to keep Kalshi operating nationwide against New York's $36 billion lawsuit in August, a tool multiple outlets say had gone unused for roughly 46 years before this summer.
September 10, 2026MEMX Wants to List Event Contracts as a Securities Exchange, Not a DCM
MEMX's August 12 SEC filing to list equities-based event contracts on its options exchange opens a second federal path into the prediction-markets business, one that runs through securities law and Rule 19b-4 rather than the CFTC's designated-contract-market framework Kalshi, Polymarket, and CME currently use.
September 8, 2026Novig's Sue-First Strategy: Five States, Two Weeks, One Playbook
New sports-only operator Novig sued five state attorneys general within its first two weeks of offering event contracts, filing each suit before a state could act rather than after, a preemptive litigation strategy built on the same CEA theory bigger rivals have used defensively.
September 8, 2026Ninth Circuit's Kalshi Ruling Sets Up a Supreme Court Fight
The Ninth Circuit's August 28 ruling that Nevada can enforce its gaming law against Kalshi's sports contracts directly conflicts with the Third Circuit's April decision for Kalshi, handing the Supreme Court the kind of circuit split that usually forces it to take a case.
September 8, 2026Sue, Ban, or Tax: Three Ways States Are Handling Prediction Markets
Rather than converging on one legal theory, US states are pursuing at least three distinct strategies against event-contract platforms: cease-and-desist orders, direct lawsuits, and, in North Carolina's case, taxing the activity instead of contesting its legality.
September 8, 2026Why the CFTC Is Pushing Kalshi and Polymarket Off Injury Bets
Kalshi and Polymarket both pulled contracts tied to athlete injuries and player availability in late August and early September at the CFTC's informal request, moving ahead of a June rulemaking that would formally bar the category as contrary to the public interest.
September 8, 2026TRO, Preliminary Injunction, Contempt: The Escalation Ladder States Use
Michigan's September 1 order against Kalshi shows the same three-step sequence states have used all summer: a temporary restraining order for immediate relief, a preliminary injunction once a fuller hearing is held, and a contempt motion with daily fines if the operator's compliance falls short.
September 8, 2026CFTC's Mention-Markets Review: What Counts as 'Readily Susceptible to Manipulation'
A White House teleprompter operator's profitable trades on Kalshi's word-based contracts triggered a CFTC review of whether mention markets meet the core-principle standard every designated contract market must satisfy before listing a product.
September 3, 2026CFTC's August Guidance Wave Tightens Event-Contract Scrutiny
Two CFTC staff actions issued six days apart in August 2026, one on misleading odds displays and one on deficient incentive-program filings, show a regulator narrowing in on how event contracts are marketed and self-certified, independent of the swap-definition fight playing out in court.
September 2, 2026Why Tribal Regulators Say Prediction Markets Are Bypassing Gaming Law
At an August 4 Senate roundtable, tribal gaming leaders argued that sports-event contracts function as unregulated gambling that sidesteps four decades of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, adding a new front to the fight over how far federal derivatives law can reach into gambling regulation.
September 1, 2026Kalshi's Utah Loss Is the First Final Word Against Preemption
A federal judge's August 4 summary judgment for Utah is the first non-preliminary ruling to reject Kalshi's argument that federal law preempts state gambling enforcement, and it now heads to a seventh circuit court on appeal.
August 31, 2026DCM, No-Action Letter, or FCM: How CFTC Licensing Really Works
Prediction-market operators reach CFTC-regulated status through at least four distinct paths, from a ground-up Designated Contract Market application to acquiring an existing exchange outright. Here is how each pathway works, how long it takes, and which operators have used it.
August 31, 2026NYC Council's Marketing Probe Opens a Fourth Front on Prediction Markets
New York City Council's investigation into Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase, and Gemini Titan targets advertising and marketing conduct directly, a consumer-protection angle distinct from the federal licensing fights and state gambling-law suits already underway against the same operators.
August 27, 2026How Every Major US Prediction-Market Operator Is Licensed
From Kalshi's original DCM designation to Charles Schwab's SEC-regulated side door, the operators competing for US prediction-market volume have taken at least four structurally different paths to legal market access.
August 27, 2026