US senators urge CFTC to finalize ban on election betting


5 United States Senators and three Home representatives have renewed requires the commodities regulator to ban betting on the 2024 presidential election.

They claimed that such markets “may affect and intervene with elections and additional erode public belief in democracy” in an Aug. 5 letter to the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee Chair, Rostin Benham.

“Permitting billionaires to wager extraordinary bets whereas concurrently contributing to a particular candidate or occasion, and political insiders to guess on elections utilizing personal info, will additional degrade public belief within the electoral course of.”

“We urge you to promptly finalize and implement this rule to forestall the commodification of U.S. elections.”

The letter was signed by Senators Jeff Merkley, Richard Blumenthal, Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse and Representatives Jamie Raskin, John Sarbanes and Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Lawmakers’ letter to CFTC Chair Rostin Benham. Supply: Congress

The lawmakers stressed that elections are usually not a “for-profit enterprise” as that might cheapen the sanctity of the democratic course of.

“Political bets change the motivations behind every vote, changing political convictions with monetary calculations.”

All eight lawmakers are members of the Democratic occasion.

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It comes as decentralized prediction platform Polymarket has seen greater than $500 million in bets positioned on the “Presidential Election Winner 2024” market, whereas the “Democratic Nominee 2024” market has tallied $319.7 million in bets.

Punters from all around the globe can place bets on these markets.

Polymarket settled a $1.4 million fine with the CFTC in January, 2022, for providing greater than 900 event-based binary possibility occasion contract markets with out acquiring registration.

The US presidential election is now three months away.

Most cryptocurrency betting platforms have Republican candidate Donald Trump as clear favourite to win the US election — nonetheless presumptive Democrat candidate Kamala Harris has been closing that hole in current weeks.

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