CFTC moves to define event contracts as swaps and casino-style betting as not swaps
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readThe U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission published two rule texts on 9 October that, read together, draw a line through the middle of the prediction-market business.
Event contracts are swaps — proposed. In a notice of proposed rulemaking, the CFTC proposes to define the term swap expressly to include event contracts, including those based on sports, politics, cultural and weather-related events. The release says such contracts are financial instruments commonly known to the trade as swaps and that the proposal is meant to resolve any ambiguity about them. Chairman Michael S. Selig called them commodity derivatives squarely within the agency's remit and within its exclusive jurisdiction under the Commodity Exchange Act, and said Americans use them to hedge, speculate and supply information about future events.
Casino-style gambling is not — immediately. In a separate interim final rule, the Commission codifies what it calls its long-standing position that casino-style gambling products, including sportsbook wagers and casino games, are excluded from the swap definition. "Casino-style gambling products are not derivatives," Selig said, describing the rule as clarity about the limits of the agency's remit for products historically regulated by the states.
Timing differs, and that matters. The interim final rule takes effect immediately on publication in the Federal Register, with comments accepted for 30 days afterwards. The event-contract proposal is only a proposal: comments are due within 30 days of its Federal Register publication, and a final rule would follow later, if at all. As of the releases, neither text's Federal Register date was given.
Why a crypto desk follows this. Prediction markets built on blockchains and settled in stablecoins face, in the United States, exactly the question these texts address: is a contract on a sports result or an election a regulated derivative, or a bet that states can police? The proposal answers derivative, federal for event contracts; the interim rule answers gambling, state for sportsbooks and casino games. The line between the two — a contract on the outcome of a game versus a wager on the same game — is stated only in principle, and is what comment letters will test.
What the releases do not say. They do not name any platform, do not address crypto-asset settlement specifically, and give no definitions of where a sports event contract ends and a sportsbook wager begins beyond the categories quoted. Those details will be in the rule texts themselves once published in the Federal Register.
Sources: CFTC, release 9310-26, 9 October 2026 — https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9310-26 ; CFTC, release 9309-26, 9 October 2026 — https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9309-26