Anonymous comment on CFTC-2026-1189, CFTC-2026-1189-0001

Re: Prediction Markets; Public Interest Determinations, 91 Fed. Reg. 35,806 (RIN 3038-AF65) I am an individual retail participant in CFTC-regulated event-contract markets, commenting anonymously. I write to a single point: the proposed public-interest factors should expressly weigh the retail solicitation and retention environment in which event contracts are actually offered, and that environment also bears directly on whether sports event contracts involve gaming within the meaning of CEA Section 5c(c)(5)(C), 7 U.S.C. 7a-2(c)(5)(C). The Commission need not resolve that question in the abstract; it can consult how a designated contract market sells the product. In the days before the February 2026 Super Bowl, a radio advertisement airing in the Boston market stated, in full: "The big game is here, and now you can trade on football legally nationwide on Kalshi. Right now New England is trading at 32 percent to beat Seattle. A $100 trade pays out $289. Use code FAN to get $22 when you trade $100. Kalshi. Trade on anything." Every element speaks the grammar of sports wagering rather than of risk transfer: the big game, one team to beat another, a payout multiple, and a promo-code deposit inducement, addressed to a mass broadcast audience. The solicitation is also asymmetric in a way no other retail derivatives channel would tolerate: it converts the 32 percent win probability into dollars while leaving the 68 percent probability of losing the entire $100, established by the advertisement's own quoted price, unstated, with no risk disclosure of any kind. Its single quantified claim is not even internally consistent: at 32 cents per contract, $100 purchases 312.5 contracts and returns $312.50 gross, $212.50 net of cost, so the advertised $289 corresponds to neither figure and implies an undisclosed effective cost near 34.6 cents per contract. A mass-broadcast solicitation whose one number is wrong is itself evidence of the review gap this rulemaking should close. The surrounding environment compounds the solicitation. The exchange's certified rulebooks, publicly posted, contain no responsible-trading, trading-break, or self-exclusion provision of any kind, an absence any member of the public can verify in the documents themselves. And the retail interface concentrates friction asymmetrically: deposit controls sit on the principal surfaces, one tap away, while no withdrawal control appears there, and reaching a withdrawal requires navigating to secondary settings surfaces, with deposits rendered in positive visual framing and withdrawals in negative. Licensed wagering regimes treat exactly this pattern, inducements on entry, friction on exit, absent self-exclusion machinery, as a core consumer-protection concern and regulate it in detail; a designated contract market operating the same retail funnel for the same events faces no comparable obligation under the current framework. I acknowledge the fair counterpoints. Advertising norms for licensed sportsbooks are themselves permissive, and the legal characterization of sports event contracts is actively litigated. The point here is narrower and within this rulemaking's four corners: whatever the ultimate characterization, the public-interest determination should weigh the solicitation and retention environment as it actually operates, advertising balance and accuracy, deposit inducements, funds-access friction, and the presence or absence of responsible-trading provisions in the certified rulebooks. A product marketed in the idiom of a sportsbook, with inducements but without balance, on an exchange whose rules contain no responsible-trading provision at all, is precisely the environment the proposed factors should be able to see. Thank you for considering these comments.