Comment Text:
I'm a software engineer who works in Fintech. I work on applications that deal with climate risk and probability in the future, and my company works to create products that allow tradable hedges against climate risk events. We offer and sell these products on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and elsewhere.
Through my job, I know how important it can be to quantify probabilities of events happening and to be able to ascribe a dollar value to them. In my free time, I've been trading on PredictIt for over 4 years. I've seen firsthand how PredictIt and other prediction markets react rapidly to breaking news related to elections. Unlike other sources of information, these markets give an objective, clearly quantified price movement to new information. I can use these the markets to stay informed on issues in a way thats more accurate than even polling. The ability to follow the odds of an election in real time is invaluable.
It is my understanding that the CFTC is proposing an amendment that would consider prediction markets (event futures markets) like PredictIt on election outcomes to be "gaming" and changes the regulatory regime under which event futures markets are regulated. I assure you, election futures markets are not a game of chance. This proposed rule would hurt a very valuable tool and technology that enables citizens to stay informed, not just the ones who trade. Removing access to prediction markets removes their ability to provide accurate up-to-date probabilities, and removes the ability for organizations affected by the outcomes to hedge against externalities. Please reconsider the proposed rule.
