Thoughts

Short thoughts, notes, links, and musings by Molly White. RSS

“It’s honestly been eye opening (in a bad way) to see how special interests work in our system” says the Head of Politics at Kalshi, which pays Donald Trump Jr. to sit on its advisory board and has spent over a million in lobbying over the past ~year. The government has just filed a lawsuit to intervene to protect Kalshi from several state regulators.

It’s honestly been eye opening (in a bad way) to see how special interests work in our system. Kalshi and other regulated prediction markets are better for consumers and threaten gambling monopolies. So casinos take their profits (which come directly from people’s losses) and use it to fund the state’s litigation to try and shut down their competition. This is part of why so many people believe the government doesn’t work for them anymore

One of the government's attorneys in the CFTC's lawsuit against the states who've sued Kalshi was a lawyer for Kalshi in its lawsuit against the CFTC in 2023. He joined the DOJ in February 2025.

Dated: April 2, 2026 By: /s/ Alexandra McTague Alexandra McTague Senior Litigation Counsel U.S. Department of Justice Civil Division Enforcement & Affirmative Litigation Branch 450 5th Street, NW, Suite 6400-South Washington, D.C. 20530 Tel. 202-718-0483 Alexandra.mctague2@usdoj.gov Attorneys for the United States of America BRETT A. SHUMATE Assistant Attorney General Civil Division YAAKOV M. ROTH Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General TIBERIUS DAVIS Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General Attorneys for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Tyler S. Badgley General Counsel M. Jordan Minot Deputy General Counsel Anne Stukes Senior Assistant General Counsel Carlin Metzger (Ill. ARDC No. 6275516) Assistant General Counsel U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Ralph Metcalfe Federal Building 77 W. Jackson, Suite 800 Chicago, IL 60604 Tel: (202) 209-1087 Fax: (202) 418-5567 tbadgley@cftc.gov jminot@cftc.gov astukes@cftc.gov

Dated: November 1, 2023 Respectfully submitted, Amanda K. Rice (D.C. Bar 1019208)* JONES DAY 150 W. Jefferson Avenue, Suite 2100 Detroit, MI 48226 (313) 733-3939 Samuel V. Lioi* JONES DAY 901 Lakeside Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44114-1190 (216) 586-3939 *pro hac vice forthcoming /s/ Jacob (Yaakov) M. Roth Jacob (Yaakov) M. Roth (D.C. Bar 995090) Joshua B. Sterling (D.C. Bar 479320) John Henry Thompson (D.C. Bar 90013831) JONES DAY 51 Louisiana Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20001 (202) 879-3939 Counsel for Plaintiff KalshiEx LLC

The CFTC (the US commodities regulator) has just sued Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois for their efforts to "outlaw, regulate, or otherwise restrain" prediction markets like Kalshi.

This is another escalation by newly appointed CFTC chair Mike Selig (and sole Commissioner at the agency), who has taken it upon himself to assert the CFTC's sole regulatory authority over prediction markets. Recently, the CFTC filed a supporting brief in Crypto.com's lawsuit against Nevada.

As I wrote then, "Since the CFTC has filed no enforcement actions against prediction markets after embracing the sector following Trump’s election, Selig’s jurisdictional claim seems designed to shield the sector rather than regulate it."

Nevertheless, the CFTC's press release accompanying these lawsuits claims that state regulatory intervention could result in "poorer consumer protection and increased risk of fraud and manipulation".