President Trump’s chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Mike Selig, released the one-minute video below on social media and announced, “Over the past year, American prediction markets have been hit by an onslaught of state-led litigation. In response, the CFTC has today filed a friend-of-the-court brief, to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over these derivative markets.”
Selig added that “prediction markets aren’t new” and that the CFTC — an independent agency of the U.S. government — has been regulating the markets for over 20 years.
Selig says the markets “provide useful functions for society by allowing everyday Americans to hedge commercial risks like increases in temperature and energy price spikes. They also serve as an important check on our news media and our information streams.”
Selig concluded: “For those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear, we will see you in court.”
Mike, I appreciate you attempting this with a straight face, but I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the “derivative market” of LeBron James rebounds. These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling—pure and simple. They are destroying the lives… https://t.co/Ohup2x3D8u
— Governor Cox (@GovCox) February 17, 2026
The Republican Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, replied to Selig: “Mike, I appreciate you attempting this with a straight face, but I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the ‘derivative market’ of LeBron James rebounds. These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling—pure and simple. They are destroying the lives of families and countless Americans, especially young men. They have no place in Utah.”
Cox echoed Selig’s legal threat, adding, “Let me be clear, I will use every resource within my disposal as governor of the sovereign state of Utah, and under the Constitution of the United States to beat you in court.”
Selig expects to see others in court as well, as he claims regulatory power over prediction markets that many states, like Utah, view as sports gambling platforms merely going by another name.
Supporting claims for CFTC jurisdiction, Selig wrote an editorial in The Wall Street Journal this week entitled: “States Encroach on Prediction Markets – The CFTC, the legitimate regulator of these financial instruments, backs Crypto.com in a lawsuit appeal.”
Among the best known prediction platforms are Polymarket and Kalshi, where bets on temperatures and on LeBron James rebounds are among millions of options users can speculate on. Kalshi is regulated by the CFTC.
[NOTE: An analysis by the Financial Times asserts that approximately “90 percent of all the fees that Kalshi has ever collected have been thanks to sports.”]
As seen below on Fox Business — with the chyron reading “Kalshi Co-Founder: We Really Want the Prediction Markets to Grow” — Selig also addressed resistance from former Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, also a former U.S. Attorney. Selig said: “Chris Christie is leading a campaign to ban American Prediction Markets in states across the country. We’re simply not going to allow that to happen.”
Violating the rights of states who have been regulating sports betting and the rights of the states who oppose sports betting is not the purview of another alphabet soup federal agency. That’s what you’re doing. Yes I am standing up for the rights of all 50 states. Proud of it. https://t.co/cUcPoaFgHc
— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) February 17, 2026
Christie replied to Selig: “Violating the rights of states who have been regulating sports betting and the rights of the states who oppose sports betting is not the purview of another alphabet soup federal agency. That’s what you’re doing. Yes I am standing up for the rights of all 50 states. Proud of it.”