Two U.S. Democratic Senators are trying to block the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from using federal funds to challenge state and tribal enforcement of gambling laws against online prediction markets.
In a letter to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Jeff Merkley and 15 others asked that funding restrictions be included in the CFTC’s budget, limiting its ability to finance litigation against state regulators going after prediction market operators.
In the letter, the senators described the CFTC’s actions as “a campaign of litigation and intimidation” and warned that it could become “an instrument and enabler of online prediction markets’ efforts to bypass states’ consumer protections.
