CFTC Sends White House Rules Defining Event Contracts as Swaps

The timing is the story: the agency is advancing a definitional rule just as a court found Kalshi failed to prove its sports contracts are swaps, which suggests the CFTC is trying to settle by rulemaking what litigation left unsettled. That matters most for prediction-market operators and the exchanges listing event contracts, whose compliance obligations would hinge on a definition rather than a case-by-case test. Whether the OMB review moves quickly, and how the proposal treats sports versus other event contracts, is the open question.