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Former federal financial-market regulator says Kalshi is flat wrong: Sports bets aren’t swaps

Saturday, June 13, 2026 10:13 AM
Photo: CMI 101: Demystifyin...flickr photo by Third Way shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND 2.0) license
  • Silla Brush and Lydia Beyoud, Bloomberg News

Gary Gensler, overseer of Wall Street for significant parts of the last two decades, has a message for anyone arguing sports betting is a matter for federal financial regulators: They’re wrong.

After seeing prediction market giant Kalshi and the federal agency he once ran, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, argue that sports bets are swaps under federal oversight, Gensler decided to file a brief in a federal appeals court in Ohio on Thursday.

The issue — an age-old question of federal power versus the states — has become a major dispute across the country that will likely eventually land at the US Supreme Court.