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Bobby Allyn

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
219 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

Or what you know, how will sort of commodities futures like crude oil and soybeans, how will those prices move forward?

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

up and down, right?

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And so they weren't regulated as a security like the stock market is, but they were regulated as a commodity, as a type of derivative, as a future contract.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And so the CFTC regulates them, right?

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And, you know, they...

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

really wanted to allow people to wager on elections and to wager on sports.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And the Biden administration fought them hard on this.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

But then what was the huge rocket booster for Kaoshi was when they sued their regulator, they sued the CFTC and said, hey guys, we should be able to let people bet on elections.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And in a really surprising decision, the federal appeals court agreed and they said,

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

Look, right now, the concrete harm of letting people turn elections into a casino is just kind of speculative.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

Like there's no actual proof this is going to interfere with elections.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

So the court said, for now, it's fine.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

Let's allow it.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And that was in 2024.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And since then, they have just really multiplied the number of markets and the type of markets that are available.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

To give you a factoid, during the Biden administration, there was around 15 to 20 of these markets available for people to bet on.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And today, there's more than 400,000.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

So that court case really opened the door to not just elections, but to being able to bet on absolutely anything.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And the Trump administration got in and dropped investigations, made regulations much more lax, and installed someone, Michael Selig, to chair the CFTC, who is a huge fan of the industry.

Up First from NPR
Bet on Anything, Everywhere, All at Once

And we do know from all available evidence that the Trump administration wants to see this industry thrive.