Comment Text:
I am very disturbed by the proliferation of prediction markets and the number of recent events that show signs of market manipulation and insider trading. It is very important for the Commission to make strong regulations about event contract derivatives that are betted on in the prediction markets.
It is wrong, dangerous, and unethical for people to bet and capitalize on military operations, crimes, government foreign policies and domestic policies, and other things that we have seen people trading on. We need strong guardrails to protect the integrity of our government decisions and our public confidence that our government decisions are not being hijacked by private profiteers.
Any event contract about those kinds of decidable events makes exploitation much more likely and easy. It should be illegal for event contracts on those kind of events. We must preserve the public interest, not turn everything into a gambling opportunity that can be manipulated by insiders with advanced knowledge of the decisions. Without this kind of regulation for this industry, trust in our government is also being gambled away.
The Commission has both the authority and responsibility under the Commodity Exchange Act to establish clear prohibitions on event contracts that are contrary to the public interest. I respectfully request that the Commission prohibit these dangerous categories of event contracts, strengthen surveillance and enforcement mechanisms to detect insider trading, and prioritize market integrity and public welfare over industry growth.
It is a horrible feeling to know that - at this moment - these types of dangerous manipulations are completely unregulated. I have a child serving in the military, and I shudder to think about the financialization of decisions being made that make my child unsafe - and make all of us unsafe. Unfettered capitalistic exploitation of government decisions is no way to run foreign policy, domestic policy, or military decisions.
We need this Commission to do what is needed for the interests of the people, not the interests of wealthy gamblers, insider traders, and unethical government decision-makers
