Polymarket is plotting its official return to the United States, and the massive offshore prediction market is apparently planning to offer de facto betting on sports and elections when that launch occurs.
- Polymarket is preparing a return to the U.S. market with plans to offer contracts on sports and election outcomes.
- Regulatory filings from its newly acquired, CFTC-licensed exchange QCEX reveal offerings like moneylines, point spreads, and election winner contracts.
- This move comes more than three years after Polymarket settled with the CFTC, and it may face continued legal scrutiny over whether these contracts constitute unlicensed sports betting.
Regulatory filings posted Tuesday to the website of Commodity Futures Trading Commission-licensed exchange QCEX, acquired by Polymarket in July for approximately $112 million, suggest as much.
The so-called "self-certification" filings to the CFTC (first reported by gambling consultant Dustin Gouker) are for "athletic event," "athletic spread," "total score," and "election winner" contracts.
In other words, moneylines, point spreads, totals, and election contracts, all of which Polymarket intends to list for trading “no earlier” than Oct. 2.
“If the specified Outcome occurs (e.g., Team A wins), then each long (athletic event contract) position shall receive one dollar ($1.00) and each short position shall receive zero dollars ($0.00),” one of the filings explains. “If the Outcome does not occur (e.g., Team A loses, is eliminated, et al), then each long AEC position shall receive zero dollars ($0.00) and each short position shall receive one dollar ($1.00).”
The timing of when these contracts could be offered suggests Polymarket's U.S. launch is near, more than three years after it settled with the CFTC and agreed to stop serving American customers. Since then, the prediction market has grown into one of the world’s biggest, if not the biggest, facilitating big crypto bets on event outcomes tied to economics, elections, and, yes, sports.
Sports, sports, sports, and more sports
However, Polymarket is now planning an official return to the U.S. regulated market. And, as its filings suggest, that return will be full of sports and election betting.
“Polymarket US has a license with SportsdataIO to receive official event data, but may also use data from other reputable news outlets, subject to Polymarket US's sole discretion,” the company notes in its sports filings.
Sports event contracts were first offered by Crypto.com last December, but they have quickly grown to be a key part of the prediction markets business in the U.S.
Even so, the contracts are being contested by various state gambling regulators across the U.S. for being, those regulators allege, simply sports betting. That litigation is ongoing and the fight over the legality of sports event contracts will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
