CFTC to Review Prediction Market Kalshi’s Contracts to Bet on Control of Congress

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will decide on June 26 whether to start a formal 90-day review of prediction market provider KalshiEX’s contract that allows users to bet on which party takes control of the U.S. Congress.

The CFTC oversees the company as a designated contract market, and 90-day reviews are the legal process by which the agency can approve or reject contracts. Kalshi had submitted the contract for CFTC review last year but recently withdrew that original request, and the exchange is now returning to the agency with a new submission.

These particular cash-settled, binary contracts would allow users to predict and bet on which parties would have majority control of each of the two chambers of Congress.

The prediction markets – which allow people “to buy and sell contracts on whether events are going to happen or not,” as Kalshi describes it on its site – have had a tumultuous recent history with the CFTC. Other companies had been ordered to cease doing business in the U.S., such as Polymarket and PredictIt, which has been fighting the CFTC in court since last year.