In his November 3 “State of Play” column at PlayUSA, senior staff writer Steve Friess cites Coalition for Political Forecasting executive Director Pratik Chougule in his analysis of Kalshi’s lawsuit against the CFTC. 

Below is an excerpt:

[T]he entire episode has given folks like Pratik Chougule, founder of the Coalition for Political Forecasting, the jitters. Chougule, host of the Star Spangled Gamblers podcast, said he believes putting this question before the courts now is a sure loser. He said the country isn’t ready and that there’s well-organized opposition to election gambling…

That opposition must be softened by education and persuasion before anyone expects the courts to go there, Chougule said on an episode of his show this week. But the Kalshi lawsuit may short-circuit such efforts. He said:

“Every single intervention Kalshi has made, without exception, has moved the ball backwards, not forward. They’ve offered a handful of political markets on their site, very, very few, none of which have meaningful liquidity, none of which are unique or cannot be offered. But with that exception, the only thing that their intervention has done is provoke antibodies in the space, draw a whole bunch of people into engaging on this issue who had never even thought twice about this issue, provoked the CFTC to take intervention where they were perfectly content to leave it alone in kind of a stalemate.”….

Perhaps most importantly, all of this just leaves Americans vulnerable legally and financially when they do decide to bet on politics. Instead of legal, regulated markets, they end up on overseas sites where the interest in wagering on U.S. election outcomes is staggering. London-based Betfair.com handled more than $2 billion in bets on the 2020 presidential election, Wake Forest University economist Koleman Strumpf estimates.

Not that Kalshi cares. At least not as much as Chougule, who said:

“At the end of the day, Kalshi is a for-profit company. They don’t seek to be a political betting platform. They seek to be a company that offers event contracts on everything. [Political wagering] is one of many bets that they are making, one of many different avenues that they’re pursuing. They’re just trying to figure out what works. If it’s politics and elections, that works out great. If it’s something else, that’s great, also, from their perspective.”

Just not so great for the rest of us.

Steve’s full column is available here.