Posted on: December 23, 2025, 12:18h.
Last up to date on: December 22, 2025, 05:21h.
- Chris Christie has joined the struggle in opposition to sports activities prediction markets
- Christie helped states win the fitting to legalize sports activities betting
- Christie and President Trump are usually not buddies, which might hamper Christie’s CFTC affect
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who championed the struggle in opposition to the US federal authorities for states to possess the fitting to legalize sports activities betting, has a brand new goal in sports activities prediction markets.
Christie, a two-term Republican governor within the blue Garden State, helped lead New Jersey’s authorized problem to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA). The federal regulation had restricted single-game sports activities playing to Nevada.
After years in court docket, the US Supreme Court in May 2018 in the end sided with New Jersey in that PASPA violated anti-commandeering interpretations of the Tenth Amendment. The landmark ruling led to 40 states and Washington, DC, passing sports activities betting legal guidelines.
Now, Christie is becoming a member of the American Gaming Association (AGA), a commerce group representing the pursuits of the business and tribal gaming industries, to marketing campaign in opposition to the continued rise of sports activities prediction markets.
CNBC’s Contessa Brewer, who covers gaming issues for the enterprise information outlet, broke the Christie information final Friday.
Sports Prediction Markets
Prediction markets licensed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) declare to facilitate the shopping for and promoting of binary markets and sure/no contracts. Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket initially centered on the end result of real-world happenings and occasions, from the climate to politics, however extra lately ventured into sports activities.
State attorneys normal, gaming regulators, and sure state lawmakers have mentioned the sports activities prediction markets are nothing greater than sports activities playing, however Kalshi and the like don’t maintain sports activities betting licenses in states the place they function. They’re even working in states like California and Texas, the place sports activities betting is unlawful.
Several conventional sportsbook giants, together with DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics, lately withdrew their AGA memberships to pursue their very own prediction markets. DraftKings Predictions and FanDuel Predicts launched over the previous week.
The AGA is betting on Christie having the ability to change the narrative.
They are clearly unlawful within the sports activities gaming house,” Christie instructed Brewer. “The Supreme Court turned this [sports betting] over to the states. Regulation is very important,” Christie mentioned. “This is not compliant with the law.”
The CFTC, which administers the Commodity Exchange Act, has allowed its Designated Contract Market (DCM) licensees to supply contracts on sporting outcomes. The CFTC, beneath the Trump administration, appears unlikely to pressure prediction markets to stop buying and selling sports activities contracts. Even the president’s household is prepping a prediction market entry via its media group, and Donald Trump Jr. is a particular advisor to Polymarket and Kalshi.
The Commodity Exchange Act prohibits CFTC licensees from buying and selling contracts involving “gaming” and occasions “contrary to the public interest” like conflict, terrorism, and assassination.
“Just because people brazenly break the law doesn’t mean they should be permitted to do so,” Christie mentioned.
Sports Integrity in Focus
Christie says, in contrast to authorized, regulated sportsbooks, which report suspicious betting exercise to state gaming regulators and sports activities leagues when wagering patterns recommend a sport or participant may very well be compromised, predictive markets are just like the wild west, the place no such monitoring is happening.
The issues which have occurred within the NBA and MLB have been found as a result of the licensed sportsbooks are partnered with state regulators to search for irregularities. No one is on the lookout for irregularities in sports activities prediction markets,” Christie mentioned.
“The CFTC has made it clear they aren’t regulating it with any rigor,” Christie continued. “The CFTC is not doing the job regarding sports, nor do they claim to be doing the job.”
Christie will attempt to assist the AGA stress to the CFTC that prediction markets shouldn’t be allowed to supply sports activities contracts. It may very well be a tall job, as Christie’s relationship with Trump has soured enormously since his 2016 endorsement of the billionaire, one thing he’s known as the “biggest mistake I’ve made in my political career.”
