Prediction Markets Expecting Supreme Court Showdown
Jesse M. Cox Published 24/08/2026
A prediction market executive expects that the issue of the legality of these sites will be decided by the Supreme Court. He believes that this legal showdown will be before the highest court in the land within a year. Flip Pidot, of PredictIt, a 20-year veteran of the industry, believes that the day of reckoning will happen by next June.
Pidot is predicting that the battle between the federal prediction market regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTC), and state gambling regulators over which entity gets to govern the fast-growing platforms will require the Supreme Court to settle the question.
Prediction markets and state gambling regulators will meet in a Supreme Court clash
The number of ongoing legal battles over prediction market sites is massive. It's a battle royale. Coming to an end before the highest court in the land is not merely predictable. It seems inevitable.
That's certainly how someone on the inside is viewing the outcome. Flip Pidot, the Chief Strategy Officer at PredictIt, has been working in the prediction market industry for nearly two decades. He tells Fortune that there appears to be no other solution to this issue. It's going to take the Supreme Court making the ultimate call.
“When you have a high-stakes intergovernmental conflict where a federal regulator like the CFTC is opposed in their position to a supermajority of state attorneys general… then that can get the Supreme Court’s attention,” Pidot told Fortune.
Nearly half of the US states are involved in legal action with prediction market sites
There are currently approximately 50 legal challenges between state regulators or state attorneys general and prediction market sites or the CFTC. They are ongoing across 25 states.
That's leading to a call from others in the financial industry for someone to step in and get things under control and regulated under one umbrella. That could be the Supreme Court's call. Maybe it will be Congress getting the job done.
Cody Carbone is the chief executive officer of the Digital Chamber. He believes in choosing a specific route to finding a solution. Carbone thinks it's going to be easier for one entity to make the call.
Full disclosure: Carbone is on the side of the prediction market sites.
"A prediction market is not a sportsbook," Carbone wrote in an op-ed for Morningstar. "It is an exchange, a neutral intermediary that never takes a side. Traders set odds by themselves by betting against each other on outcomes, from elections to interest rates to the weather, and the platform earns a fee on the trade, not on who wins.
"A sportsbook sets odds to balance its own risk and profits when bettors lose. A prediction-market exchange never has money on either side of the trade. It makes the same fee whether a trader is right or wrong. Investors can exit anytime. It's a financial contract, not a wager against the house."
Carbone would be okay with a Supreme Court ruling on the matter
Carbone wants to see some ruling entity step in and settle this matter once and for all.
"Let the CFTC do the job Congress already gave it, and let state regulators keep doing theirs on conduct and consumer protection," Carbone wrote. "Where the law is genuinely unsettled, let the Supreme Court resolve the circuit split, or let Congress write clearer rules once, instead of 50 states litigating it badly and separately at taxpayers' expense."