A senator who once fought against the proliferation of prediction markets before they took off in popularity has done a complete U-turn by becoming a lobbyist for gambling platform Kalshi.
As Ars Technica reports, former senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) perfectly predicted the rise of prediction markets in 2010, years before companies like Kalshi and Polymarket took off.
“It would be quite easy to construct an event contract around sporting events such as the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and Masters golf tournament,” Lincoln warned her fellow lawmakers at the time. “These types of contracts would not serve any real commercial purpose. Rather, they would be used solely for gambling.”
She even helped write the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a law allowing the US government to ban sports gambling on prediction markets in 2010, arguing it was in the public interest to grant the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) the authority to do so.
And while she turned out to be entirely correct about the eventual emergence of the new form of gambling, which allows practically anybody to bet on events far beyond the outcomes of sporting events, Lincoln eventually couldn’t resist joining the other side.
Since 2024, she’s been lobbying Congress and the CFTC to effectively undo her own legislation by urging lawmakers to allow sports gambling on prediction markets.
The 2010 law left it up to the executive branch to decide whether to allow sports bets on prediction platforms. The Biden administration decided to follow in the spirit of the legislation — but the current Trump White House has once again opened the floodgates.
The Trump administration is also actively fighting to prevent any states from enacting their own gambling laws aimed at prediction markets, setting the stage for a nationwide court battle. Per Ars, some 20 states are challenging Congress on whether prediction markets should be legal, with mixed results so far, setting the stage for a Supreme Court decision.
Lincoln’s reversal is particularly ironic, considering lawmakers are actively using her deliberations to argue against prediction markets. She was a senator until early 2011, after which she founded a lobbying group called Lincoln Policy Group.
The group has been paid almost half a million dollars by Kalshi since 2024, according to Ars.
Lincoln Policy Group told the publication in a statement that it “advocates for strong federal CFTC oversight of prediction markets because it is essential to establish guardrails, prevent market abuse, and protect consumers.”
While the future of prediction markets remains unwritten, the stakes are incredibly high. Kalshi and Polymarket, alongside sports betting apps, have already led to a surge in gambling addiction, particularly among young men.
Insider trading also remains a major problem, from members of the military betting on sensitive information to president Donald Trump’s teleprompter operator getting busted for making wagers about what he would say during speeches.
More on prediction markets: News Organizations Like CBS Embracing Prediction Markets as “Journalism” Is a Deep Moral Disgrace
