Prediction market gambling needs state regulation, Mulvaney says
Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who leads a coalition that wants government officials, not a federal commodities agency, to regulate the booming industry, says buying contracts in prediction markets is just another word for “gambling.”
“The simple answer is that it’s gambling. That’s right,” Mulvaney told CNBC’s Contessa Brewer, saying the booming industry needed extra scrutiny following betting activity before the Iran war.
“I’m buying a betting contract on the Lakers winning the basketball game, whatever it is, if you ask the average person if it’s sports gambling, they’ll definitely think it is,” the former Republican congressman from South Carolina said.
Mulvaney, whose new coalition is called Gambling Is Not an Investment, argued: Commodity Futures Trading Commission “set up to regulate markets” but “not set up to protect consumers” such as those who buy contracts on prediction markets, which include Polymarket and Kalshi.
The CTFC argued that the regulator of prediction markets should be, not government agencies.
“Look, I used to be a federal regulator,” Mulvaney said. “I used to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the CFTC, but they are not in the same business of regulating sports gambling.”
Mulvaney also said that recent contracts for prediction markets that have provided huge profits to buyers who predict that the United States will invade Iran should also be investigated.
He also suggested, as did members of Congress, that such activities pose a security risk to the United States.
“If someone is trading in prediction markets on classified information and our adversaries and adversaries can get information on that…how do you handle that as it relates to our plans as a nation?” Mulvaney asked. “If the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians are collecting information from the prediction markets that will help them against us, how do you fix that?”
Asked who owns or funds his group, Brewer Mulvaney responded: “We don’t disclose who we are, who funds us. We don’t have to do that by law.”
