Ex-CFTC chair Gary Gensler is spot on with his amicus brief against federally sanctioned prediction markets:
1) The structure, history, and purpose of federal commodity derivatives markets and laws have nothing to do with sports betting.
2) Congress did not include sports betting contracts within the statutory Dodd-Frank definition of swap.
3) Nobody involved in DF’s passage called for preempting states or their gaming commissions’ authorities over sports betting.
4) DF's “Special Rule,” by text and design, does not define sports bets as swaps.
5) The CFTC did not ask Congress for staffing or appropriations to regulate millions of sports betting transactions either when DF passed or after Murphy, and it lacks the experience to do so.
6) Congress does not make fundamental changes in the balance of state and federal power in isolated snippets of text. As the Court has said, Congress does not “hide elephants in mouseholes.”
37 attorneys general have signed onto a brief supporting Ohio’s right to enforce its state sports gaming and gambling laws.
I don't usually agree with Gensler but he's right that gambling is meant to be regulated in the states.
via @DustinGouker excellent newsletter on these issues.