CFTC Moves to Classify Event Contracts as Swaps in Prediction Market Power Grab

The classification matters less as a technical definition than as a jurisdictional claim: labeling event contracts as swaps gives the CFTC a single, familiar regulatory hook to assert exclusivity against states that have moved on the same products. The practical audience is prediction-market operators and their state regulators, since the agency is simultaneously litigating the same question in court and has recently lost ground there. The open question is whether a rulemaking can settle authority that federal judges have so far been reluctant to grant, and whether states treat the proposal as a negotiating position or a provocation.