CFTC's Event Contract Swap Proposal Has 11 Comments and None From the States

Nine days before the deadline, the rule that would write sports contracts into the federal swap definition has drawn 11 public comments. The states that told the CFTC in an earlier rulemaking that these contracts are sports betting have not yet filed.

• Regulations.gov had posted 11 comments by 9 November on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) proposal to define event contracts, sports included, as swaps, which closes for comment on 18 November
• Four come from companies: Six Sigma Group, which has a pending exchange application and supports the rule; Nevada device maker Ardent Progressive Systems and Games; MindCast AI; and BetEx
• No state, attorney general, Kalshi, CME Group or the American Gaming Association had filed, although the CFTC records that 40 states and the District of Columbia commented on an earlier proposal
• The companion interim final rule excluding licensed sportsbooks and casinos, in force since 19 October, has seven comments on the same deadline
• The CFTC's March advance notice on prediction markets drew 3,561 comments and its June public interest proposal 1,459, according to Federal Register docket data

Eleven Comments on the Rule That Would Make Event Contracts Swaps

The proposal, published in the Federal Register on 19 October at 91 FR 66022 as "Further Definition of 'Swap'" with the subtitle "Inclusions" (RIN 3038-AF82), would add a new category to the swap definition in 17 CFR 1.3: event contracts, "including those based on sports-, politics-, cultural, and weather-related events". The CFTC notice says comments "must be received by November 18, 2026" and directs filers to Regulations.gov, where the proposal sits in docket CFTC-2026-2213. It was issued on 15 October with Chairman Michael Selig the only vote. iGT set out the proposal's four arguments when the CFTC announced it on 9 October.

The public docket lists 11 comments posted between 20 October and 9 November. Seven are from individuals or anonymous. One anonymous filer objects to the CFTC "using its own definitional rule to settle a question Congress has not answered", citing the split among federal appeals courts. A Utah resident who says he trades event contracts through Robinhood writes in support.

Who Has Filed, and What They Ask

Six Sigma Group filed for two subsidiaries: Six Markets, a pending applicant to become a designated contract market, and Six Clearing, a pending applicant for registration as a derivatives clearing organisation. It supports both rules, and asks the CFTC to keep the product test as the decisive element of the exclusion, to apply retail protections equally to all short-dated derivatives, and to process pending applications promptly "so the certainty it creates does not favor incumbents".

Ardent Progressive Systems and Games, which describes itself as a Nevada-licensed manufacturer and distributor of gaming devices and systems, asks the CFTC to confirm that a wager meeting the exclusion's provider and product tests is not a swap whatever the event, "including wagers on published economic indicators approved under state law". MindCast AI makes nine requests, among them that the CFTC finalise its rewrite of Rule 40.11 (RIN 3038-AF65) before or together with the inclusion rule, define "event contract" in the rule text, and document the Securities and Exchange Commission's joint action. BetEx's comment is filed as an attachment.

The States Are Arguing Everywhere Except This Docket

The CFTC's own interim rule records that 40 states and the District of Columbia told it in an earlier rulemaking that sports event contracts are "indistinguishable from traditional sports betting", and 39 states and the District back New Jersey at the Supreme Court. With nine days left, that silence may not last. But the docket is the record a court would review if the rule is finalised and challenged, and an argument left out of it can be harder to press later. A state strategy built on litigation, now including the CFTC's own suit against Utah, still needs that record.

The Live Questions Are Coming From the Edges

The substantive filings so far come from an exchange applicant, a gaming device maker and MindCast AI, and they probe the proposal's seams rather than its premise. Ardent's question about economic-indicator wagers tests whether the CFTC's line really turns on who sells a product and how it trades, not on what it is. MindCast's sequencing request points at the gap iGT noted in October: classing a contract as a swap does not by itself settle whether it may be listed.

A Fraction of the Earlier Dockets

The March advance notice drew 3,561 comments and the June public interest proposal 1,459, according to the Regulations.gov counts the Federal Register carries. The swap definition arguably has the greater legal reach, because it underpins the federal position on which the CFTC is pressing exchanges to drop state geofencing and on which pre-emption arguments rest. Eleven responses so far may suggest the main parties see the courts, not the docket, as the place this question will be decided.

The CFTC is building a record with few voices in it. The next nine days will show whether the states and the operators choose to add theirs.