--- aliases: - Commodity Futures Trading Commission - CFTC category: U.S. Government created: 2026-10-13 relations: - fn: 7 role: settled order for offering off-exchange event-based binary options, 1.4 million dollar civil penalty start: 2022-01-03 type: prosecuted with: '[[Polymarket]]' - end: 2019-07-15 fn: 1 reverse: true role: acting chairman from January 20, 2017; chairman from August 10, 2017 start: 2017-01-20 type: head_of with: '[[J. Christopher Giancarlo]]' - end: 2021-01-21 fn: 1 reverse: true role: 14th chairman start: 2019-07-15 type: head_of with: '[[Heath Tarbert]]' - end: 2025-01-20 fn: 1 reverse: true role: acting chairman from January 21, 2021; chairman from January 4, 2022 start: 2021-01-21 type: head_of with: '[[Rostin Behnam]]' - end: 2025-12-22 fn: 1 reverse: true role: acting chairman start: 2025-01-20 type: head_of with: '[[Caroline Pham]]' - fn: 3 reverse: true role: 16th chairman start: 2025-12-22 type: head_of with: '[[Michael Selig]]' - end: 2021-08-31 fn: 1 reverse: true role: commissioner start: 2017-08-15 type: employed_by with: '[[Brian Quintenz]]' summary: The CFTC barred Nadex election contracts in 2012, fined Polymarket in 2022, disapproved Kalshi's congressional contracts in 2023, dropped its appeal of Kalshi's court win in 2025 and opened prediction-market rulemaking in 2026. tags: - Organization - Government - CFTC - PredictionMarkets - EventContracts - Polymarket - Kalshi - PredictIt - Regulation - Derivatives title: Commodity Futures Trading Commission updated: 2026-10-13 --- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is the federal regulator of U.S. futures, swaps and options markets under the Commodity Exchange Act. Its decisions on whether contracts that pay out on elections and other real-world outcomes may be listed have governed, at different points, whether [Polymarket](/organizations/polymarket/), [Kalshi](/organizations/kalshi/), PredictIt and Nadex could offer them to customers in the United States. ### Chairs and Commissioners, 2017 to 2026 The CFTC's list of former commissioners gives these dates: J. Christopher Giancarlo, acting chairman January 20 to August 10, 2017 and chairman August 10, 2017 to July 15, 2019; Heath Tarbert, chairman July 15, 2019 to January 21, 2021, confirmed 84 to 9 by the Senate; Rostin Behnam, commissioner from September 6, 2017 to February 7, 2025, acting chairman January 21, 2021 to January 4, 2022 and chairman January 4, 2022 to January 20, 2025; Caroline Pham, commissioner from April 14, 2022 to December 22, 2025 and acting chairman from January 20, 2025; and [Brian Quintenz](/people/brian-quintenz/), commissioner August 15, 2017 to August 31, 2021.[^1] Behnam was elected acting chairman by the commissioners on January 21, 2021, the day Tarbert announced he was leaving the chairmanship.[^2] Michael Selig was nominated on October 27, 2025, confirmed by the Senate on December 18, 2025, and sworn in on December 22, 2025 as the 16th chairman. He had been chief counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Crypto Task Force and a senior adviser to SEC chairman Paul Atkins.[^3] The commission's page of current commissioners, retrieved October 13, 2026, lists Selig alone.[^4] ### The Nadex Order, 2012 On April 2, 2012 the CFTC issued an order under Section 5c(c)(5)(C)(ii) of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC Regulation 40.11(a)(1) prohibiting the North American Derivatives Exchange (Nadex) from listing or clearing political event derivatives. The contracts were binary options paying out on the results of various U.S. federal elections to be held in 2012. Nadex had self-certified them on December 19, 2011, and the CFTC began a 90-day review period on January 3, 2012. The CFTC "determined that the contracts involve gaming and are contrary to the public interest, and cannot be listed or made available for clearing or trading," and by separate letter asked Nadex to withdraw its self-certification of the related rule amendments.[^5] ### PredictIt, 2014 to 2023 In October 2014 the CFTC's Division of Market Oversight (DMO) issued a no-action letter to Victoria University of Wellington, which had launched PredictIt as a data-gathering tool for academic researchers. The letter stated that, based on the university's representations, the DMO would "not recommend that the Commission take any enforcement action." The university had proposed capping trader investment at 850 dollars and restricting each event contract to 5,000 traders.[^6] In August 2022 the DMO rescinded the letter, stating that "[t]he University has not operated its market in compliance with the terms" of it and without identifying which terms, and directed that open positions be closed out by February 15, 2023. Users of the market, including Aristotle International and PredictIt, sued in the Western District of Texas in September 2022 (No. 1:22-CV-909).[^6] On July 21, 2023 the Fifth Circuit (Judges Graves, Ho and Duncan) held in Clarke v. CFTC, No. 22-51124, that a preliminary injunction was warranted because the rescission was "likely arbitrary and capricious," and remanded for the district court to enter one. Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan wrote the opinion, which treated the no-action letter as a "license" under the Administrative Procedure Act and rejected the CFTC's argument that a replacement letter of March 2023, which still called the original letter "void," had made the appeal moot. Judge James Ho concurred, writing that the plaintiffs' theory of final agency action "admittedly conflicts with the precedents of our sister circuits." Judge Graves agreed that the case was not moot and dissented from the injunction.[^6] ### The Polymarket Order, January 2022 On January 3, 2022 the CFTC entered an order filing and simultaneously settling charges against Delaware-registered Blockratize, Inc., doing business as Polymarket and based in New York City, for offering off-exchange event-based binary options and failing to obtain designation as a contract market or registration as a swap execution facility. The order found that from about June 2020 Polymarket had operated an unregistered facility for "event markets," offering more than 900 of them, with examples including "Will Trump win the 2020 presidential election?" The order required a 1.4 million dollar civil penalty, the wind-down of non-compliant markets, and a cease and desist. The release states that the CFTC recognized Polymarket's "substantial cooperation" with the Division of Enforcement.[^7] In July 2025 the Department of Justice and the CFTC closed their investigations of Polymarket without charges, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC; the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office had conducted the criminal investigation, and the company's chief executive [Shayne Coplan](/people/shayne-coplan/) had been the subject of an FBI search in November 2024. Polymarket acquired the CFTC-licensed exchange QCEX for 112 million dollars in July 2025.[^8][^9] The commission's order designating QCX LLC as a contract market was signed in July 2025, and on September 2, 2025 staff letter 25-28 gave QCX LLC, doing business as Polymarket US, and QC Clearing LLC no-action relief from certain swap data reporting and recordkeeping rules for fully collateralized binary options.[^10] On May 27, 2026 the CFTC filed a civil complaint in the Southern District of New York against a Google software engineer, Michele Spagnuolo, alleging insider trading in event contracts tied to Google's 2025 Year in Search list on Polymarket; the criminal complaint in the same court was unsealed the same day. The allegations have not been tested in court.[^11] ### Kalshi, 2020 to 2025 The CFTC designated KalshiEX LLC as a contract market on November 4, 2020, and registered Kalshi Klear LLC as a derivatives clearing organization on August 29, 2024.[^12][^13] Kalshi self-certified "congressional control" contracts in a submission dated June 12, 2023, and the CFTC began its review on June 22, 2023. On September 22, 2023 the CFTC issued an order disapproving the contracts, which would have asked "Will be controlled by for ?" The CFTC determined that they "involve gaming and activity that is unlawful under state law and are contrary to the public interest." Chairman Behnam issued a statement, Commissioner Summer Mersinger dissented, and Pham issued a statement.[^14] Kalshi sued. On September 12, 2024 Judge Jia M. Cobb of the District of Columbia granted summary judgment to Kalshi, finding that the contracts "do not involve activity that is unlawful under any Federal or State law, nor do they involve gaming."[^15] The CFTC appealed (D.C. Cir. No. 24-5205).[^16] On May 5, 2025, under Acting Chairman Pham, the CFTC filed in the D.C. Circuit a voluntary dismissal of its appeal on terms agreed with Kalshi. A CFTC spokesman told CNBC that the commission had earlier voted to seek dismissal. The agreement called for both sides to bear their own costs and attorney fees and for Kalshi to waive all legal claims arising from the litigation. Kalshi's chief executive [Tarek Mansour](/people/tarek-mansour/) said: "Today is historic."[^17] Quintenz, a Kalshi director, was named in February 2025 as the choice to chair the agency. In an August 4, 2025 letter to Pham, Representative Dina Titus listed the settlement of the Kalshi lawsuit, the approval of new prediction market platforms and the closing of investigations among the actions the CFTC had taken since that nomination, and asked for the release of communications on prediction markets and event contracts.[^18] ### Rulemaking on Event Contracts, 2024 to 2026 On June 10, 2024 the CFTC published a proposed rule on "Event Contracts" (89 FR 48968), proposing to specify types of contracts that "involve gaming." On February 4, 2026 the commission withdrew it (91 FR 5386, published February 6, 2026), stating that it was withdrawing the proposal "to reconsider them in light of various forms of state regulatory actions and litigation concerning the Commission's exclusive jurisdiction over event contract derivatives listed on designated contract markets."[^19] On March 12, 2026 the CFTC announced an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on prediction markets, published in the Federal Register on March 16, 2026 (91 FR 12516, RIN 3038-AF65, comments due April 30, 2026). Selig said: "This begins the process of new rulemaking grounded in a rational and coherent interpretation of the Commodity Exchange Act, while reassuring the American people that the CFTC will exercise its exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets." The notice asked about the application of core principles to prediction markets, the types of event contracts that may be prohibited as contrary to the public interest, and cost-benefit considerations.[^20] On June 12, 2026 the commission proposed amendments (91 FR 35806, comments due July 27, 2026) that would specify factors for determining that event contracts are contrary to the public interest, define the term "gaming" and add a rule on when a contract "involves" an underlying activity. On July 1, 2026 it proposed an alternate data-reporting framework for fully collateralized event contracts (91 FR 40102, comments due July 31, 2026).[^21] [^1]: CFTC, "Former Commissioners," https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/FormerCommissioners/index.htm ; CFTC, "Tarbert Begins Term as 14th CFTC Chairman," Release No. 7976-19, July 15, 2019 (84 to 9 vote), https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/7976-19 (Wayback copy, https://web.archive.org/web/2026/https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/7976-19) [^2]: CFTC, "CFTC Names Rostin Behnam Acting Chairman," Release No. 8355-21, January 21, 2021. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8355-21 (Wayback copy, https://web.archive.org/web/2026/https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8355-21) [^3]: CFTC, "Michael Selig Sworn In as 16th CFTC Chairman," Release No. 9164-25, December 22, 2025. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9164-25 (Wayback copy, https://web.archive.org/web/2026/https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9164-25) [^4]: CFTC, "Chairman & Commissioners," retrieved October 13, 2026. https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/index.htm [^5]: CFTC, "CFTC Issues Order Prohibiting North American Derivatives Exchange's Political Event Derivatives Contracts," Release No. 6224-12, April 2, 2012. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/6224-12 [^6]: Clarke v. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, No. 22-51124 (5th Cir. July 21, 2023), majority opinion (Duncan, J.), concurrence (Ho, J.) and dissent (Graves, J.). https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/Opinions/pub/22/22-51124-CV0.pdf [^7]: CFTC, "CFTC Orders Event-Based Binary Options Markets Operator to Pay $1.4 Million Penalty," Release No. 8478-22, January 3, 2022. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8478-22 [^8]: "Trump administration ends Polymarket investigations without charges," CNBC, July 15, 2025, as carried by NBC San Diego. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/business/money-report/trump-administration-ends-polymarket-investigations-without-charges/3868886/ [^9]: "Donald Trump Jr joins Polymarket advisory board after his VC firm makes strategic investment," *CryptoSlate*, as carried by Yahoo Finance, August 26, 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-jr-joins-polymarket-175527312.html [^10]: CFTC Letter No. 25-48, Supplemental Staff Letter regarding No-Action Position for QCEX Contracts, December 11, 2025, describing CFTC Letter No. 25-28 (September 2, 2025). https://www.cftc.gov/csl/25-48/download ; https://www.cftc.gov/csl/25-28/download ; Order of Designation, QCX LLC. https://www.cftc.gov/filings/documents/2025/orgdcmqcexorderofd250709.pdf [^11]: CFTC, Release Number 9237-26, "CFTC Charges Google Employee with Insider Trading in Search Result-Related Event Contracts," May 27, 2026, as reproduced by Mondo Visione, https://mondovisione.com/media-and-resources/news/cftc-charges-google-employee-with-insider-trading-in-search-result-related-event-2026528/ ; CNBC, "Google employee charged with $1M Polymarket insider trading bet on search term," May 27, 2026. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/27/google-employee-polymarket-insider-trading.html [^12]: CFTC, "CFTC Designates KalshiEX LLC as a Contract Market," Release No. 8302-20, November 4, 2020. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8302-20 [^13]: CFTC, "CFTC Grants Kalshi Klear LLC DCO Registration," Release No. 8957-24, August 29, 2024. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8957-24 [^14]: CFTC, "CFTC Disapproves KalshiEX LLC's Congressional Control Contracts," Release No. 8780-23, September 22, 2023. https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8780-23 [^15]: KalshiEX LLC v. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, No. 1:23-cv-03257 (JMC) (D.D.C. Sept. 12, 2024), Memorandum Opinion, ECF No. 51, Part IV. [^16]: KalshiEX LLC v. CFTC, No. 24-5205 (D.C. Cir.). https://dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/cadc/24-5205 [^17]: "U.S. commodities regulator seeks to drop appeal of Kalshi election bets offers," CNBC, May 5, 2025, as carried by NBC San Diego. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/business/money-report/u-s-commodities-regulator-seeks-to-drop-appeal-of-kalshi-election-bets-offers/3818910/ [^18]: Letter from Rep. Dina Titus to Acting Chairwoman Caroline D. Pham, August 4, 2025. https://titus.house.gov/uploadedfiles/8.4.25_quintenz_letter_1.pdf [^19]: "Event Contracts," 89 FR 48968 (June 10, 2024), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/06/10/2024-12125/event-contracts ; "Event Contracts; Withdrawal of Proposed Regulatory Action," 91 FR 5386 (February 6, 2026), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/06/2026-02454/event-contracts-withdrawal-of-proposed-regulatory-action [^20]: CFTC, "CFTC Seeks Public Comment on Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Relating to Prediction Markets," Release No. 9194-26, March 12, 2026, https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9194-26 (Wayback copy, https://web.archive.org/web/2026/https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9194-26); "Prediction Markets," 91 FR 12516 (March 16, 2026), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/16/2026-05105/prediction-markets [^21]: "Prediction Markets; Public Interest Determinations," 91 FR 35806 (June 12, 2026), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/06/12/2026-11854/prediction-markets-public-interest-determinations ; "Data Reporting Requirements for Certain Event Contracts," 91 FR 40102 (July 1, 2026), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/01/2026-13239/data-reporting-requirements-for-certain-event-contracts --- *The Info Web has an MCP server for agents at https://theinfoweb.org/mcp (streamable HTTP, no auth): search by meaning, exact text, source or date, and follow typed, footnoted connections. 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