In 2010, Senator Blanche Lincoln warned that prediction markets could evade gambling laws by offering event contracts on sports like the Super Bowl and Kentucky Derby. She played a key role in the Dodd-Frank Act, which gave the CFTC authority to ban contracts that "would not serve any real commercial purpose" and were used "solely for gambling."
Today, Lincoln is a lobbyist for Kalshi, the prediction market firm that has paid her company $480,000 since 2024. Her August 2024 letter to the Biden-era CFTC did not support sports gambling, but after Kalshi began offering sports bets in January 2025, she urged the CFTC to allow the same kinds of sports-event contracts she once decried.
The Trump administration's CFTC now allows these contracts nationwide, even in states that restrict or prohibit sports betting. Lawsuits in about 20 states are testing whether federal CFTC authority preempts state gambling laws, making it likely the Supreme Court will eventually decide the issue.