Kalshi Hires Obama Aide Stephanie Cutter as Policy Adviser Amid CFTC Challenges

KalshiEX LLC operates a prediction market registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a designated contract market, offering event contracts tied to sports, elections and other outcomes. New York says those products amount to unlicensed gambling, while Kalshi and the CFTC argue they are federally regulated derivatives. The dispute tests whether the Commodity Exchange Act establishes a single national regime or leaves room for state gambling authorities to police these markets.

On Aug. 11, the CFTC invoked emergency powers after Kalshi reported a market emergency, ordering the exchange to keep operating under the Commodity Exchange Act’s Core Principles. The action followed a July 31 lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James seeking a nationwide halt to all Kalshi event contracts and more than $36 billion in damages. A contemporaneous crypto snapshot showed Bitcoin near $63,907 and Ether around $1,872.

U.S. prediction market platform Kalshi allows users to trade contracts on political, economic and public-event outcomes, but its business has long faced jurisdictional disputes between state gambling laws and federal commodities regulation. The new organization, Americans for Fair Markets, seeks to break the traditional gambling industry's policy advantage, with the outcome shaping whether prediction markets can legally expand across the United States.

Kalshi recently announced its support for Americans for Fair Markets, which was co-founded with the involvement of a former Trump administration official. The group will work with an industry coalition backed by Coinbase and Crypto.com as the U.S. government scrutinizes the regulation of prediction market platforms. Available information does not disclose the organization's exact founding date, the amount committed or the official's name.