CFTC Investigates Crypto.com and Kalshi for Super Bowl Event Contracts

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has pushed back against Super Bowl event contracts launched by the exchange Crypto.com and the retail betting market Kalshi.

The retail trading giant Robinhood announced on Monday that it planned to roll out a prediction market for the Super Bowl on Kalshi.

The company walked back that announcement the following day, noting that the CFTC had requested that the firm “not permit customers to access” sports events contracts.

Explains Robinhood,

“While we continue to work with the CFTC to understand their concerns, we are suspending the rollout of the Pro Football Championship market. We have rolled this product out to roughly 1% of our customers, and for those who already placed trades, we plan on providing the option to close their positions or take them to resolution.

We are disappointed by this outcome, especially given that we had been in regular communication with the CFTC about our intent and plans to offer this product. We’ve also taken steps to advocate for balanced regulation in the futures and derivatives markets, including participating directly in a CFTC roundtable, providing written feedback to the CFTC, and generally championing the economic benefits of event contracts.

Robinhood Derivatives will continue to collaborate with the CFTC as we work to roll out a more comprehensive event contracts platform later this year.”

The CFTC also announced last month that it was probing two of Crypto.com’s sports contracts, noting the contracts could involve gaming activity that is prohibited by commodity regulations.

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