Comment Text:
The proposed closure of the PredictIt market fundamentally misunderstands the nature of how it works. Although it is a predictive market, calling it gambling is an entirely unfair characterization. Contracts are bought after careful research about political trends, using data and expert analysis; professional sources themselves often cite PredictIt activity as an earnestly helpful means of evaluating political trends. This isn’t like gambling at a casino, it’s much more akin to stock market trading and is much less speculative than activities like cryptocurrency or NFT trading. The investment limits additionally put a strong limit on people’s ability to potentially threaten their personal finances through PredictIt contracts. It would be a terrible mistake for the CFTC to close off one of the few markets which has such strong controls on its speculative activity and which allows participants to make well-informed decisions before engaging.
