[12/10/22 EDIT] It should be possible to access the market legally from within the US.
[9/8/24 EDIT] "Who will win the 2024 US presidential election?", "Who will be POTUS on 2025/1/21?" and similar would count. Markets about Congress wouldn't count.
[9/13/24 EDIT] There shouldn't be too much uncertainty about the market's legality. I'm choosing to operationalize that as "the market should be continuously available in the US for ≥1 week (not counting technical issues like a server outage)".
The ongoing court case pertains to Kalshi's listing of House and Senate contracts and their subsequent suspensions by CFTC.
Accordingly, the Court concludes that Kalshi’s congressional control contracts do not involve unlawful activity or gaming. And thus the Court has no occasion to consider whether they are contrary to the public interest.
But the favorable district court judgment is completely applicable to Presidential market even though that was not what triggered the case.
Kalshi’s event contracts ask buyers to take a yes/no position on whether a chamber of Congress will be controlled by a specific party in a given term. That question involves (relates to, entails, has as its essential feature, or any other iteration of the word) elections, politics, Congress, and party control; but nothing that any Party to this litigation has identified as illegal or unlawful activity. Nor does that question bear any relation to any game—played for stakes or otherwise.
My view is the only reason Kalshi might fail to list presidential contract if they win on the injunction/appeal is if CFTC rejects the listing and uses its 90 day review window to run out the clock until after the election. I do not think it's likely because Kalshi/court/CFTC's legal arguments do not distinguish between presidential and congressional contracts at all.
Another possibility is Kalshi chooses not to list presidential market to avoid more CFTC battle or for business/PR reasons. I think this is low probability. The Trump vs Harris market would be a game changer for Kalshi as a business.
Therefore it really comes down to whether Kalshi is able to beat the injunction, that's it. I'm not legal expert but that's my view after doing some reading.
@NathanpmYoung They have on their website kalshi.com/elections showing a “Who will win the election” with photos of Trump and Harris saying “Coming Soon”
Starting Monday, Interactive Brokers plans to allow its users to place wagers on whether Vice President Kamala Harris beats former President Donald Trump in November, the company’s founder and chairman Thomas Peterffy said in an interview.
@JavierPrieto Could you flesh out a little which specific market or markets would have to exist for this to resolve positive.
@NathanpmYoung "Who will win the 2024 US presidential election?", "Who will be POTUS on 2025/1/21?" and similar would count. Markets about Congress wouldn't count.
Are there any other wordings or edge cases you'd want me to consider?
@JavierPrieto what if the market was available for like a hour and then got frozen (as I think the congress markets have)
@NathanpmYoung I think resolving YES in that case would be against the spirit of this market. OTOH, if the market goes live today and stays available until the night before election day, I feel like that should count.
I'm inclined to just pick an arbitrary number between "a few hours" and "two months" (maybe 1 week?) and require that the market be available without interruption for at least that much time.
https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8780-23
CFTC says no
Edit: this is about congressional control markets, not presidential elections, but people seem to be discussing it as if it rules out the latter as well. Not sure why.
@EdwardKmett should be available in the US. Will edit description to clarify. Thanks for flagging!
Kalshi recently applied for approval for Control of Congress markets for the midterms https://kalshi-public-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/regulatory/notices/CONGRESS%20for%20posting.pdf