Can Regulators Get a Grip on Prediction Markets?

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0:09Democrat Graham Plattner coasts to victory in Maine, teeing up a crucial Senate contest against Susan Collins. Plus, GM follows Ford with a pivot into energy storage and regulators try to get a grip on prediction markets. The CFTC is going to take a pretty hard line on contracts on war, terrorism, or assassination because of the perverse incentives that those could create. It's Wednesday, June 10th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving our world today.

0:47We begin in Maine, where Democrats have selected political newcomer Graham Plattner as their nominee to take on Republican Senator Susan Collins in November. If you believe, as I do, that we can change our politics and change our country, then you must also believe that people can change. Our D.C. coverage chief, Damian Paletta, says that Democratic leadership now needs to weigh whether Plattner's populist appeal outweighs controversies surrounding his social media posts and relationships with women. Graham Plattner's victory Tuesday night in Maine is just the beginning for him. Now he has to take on Susan Collins, one of the most unbeatable Republicans on the planet, and campaign against her for five months.

1:29One of the big questions Democrats are going to have to face is whether to pour a lot of money into Maine to help Plattner beat Collins, or they might decide that that money is better spent in places like Texas or Iowa, where they have other candidates they could try to lift and leapfrog over Republicans there. Democrats need to pick up four seats on net to win control of the Senate. Usually that's a tall order, but this is the kind of year where anything can happen. If Democrats sense that it might be a wave election and they think they're gonna win the House, there's maybe a scenario where they could sweep the Senate too.

1:59So Democrats can have to make a decision about where to really push their chips. And it's likely that Maine's gonna be getting a lot of attention from both parties in the weeks and months to come. In other primary results, former Fox News host Steve Hilton has advanced to the general election battle to succeed California Governor Gavin Newsom in November. He'll face former Health and Human Services Secretary Democrat Javier Becerra. And Congresswoman Nancy Mace has been knocked out of the race to be South Carolina's next governor. The one-time rising star in the Republican Party came in fifth place behind Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evett, who was endorsed by President Trump, and State Attorney General Alan Wilson, who will face each other in a runoff later this month.

2:39Back in Washington, a$70 billion immigration enforcement bill is heading to President Trump's desk after its narrow passage in the House yesterday. The vote ends months of debate that began in January when Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security after the deaths of two American citizens in immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota. The bill heading to Trump's desk notably doesn't contain an almost$2 billion anti-weaponization fund to compensate those who claimed they were mistreated by the government, which the Senate had included in their version of the bill passed last week.

3:14The U.S. has launched military strikes against Iran in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes, which lasted for several hours, were directed by President Trump and were described as being carried out in self-defense. In retaliation, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a drone attack on the U.S. 5th Fleet in Bahrain. And in Taiwan, the island's army has for the first time fired U.S. missile launchers into waters directly facing China. The drills were part of a two-day military exercise the Taiwanese army said is aimed at making its training more realistic.

3:53The strategic site of the test has been regarded as a potential landing point for invading Chinese forces. China didn't immediately comment on the exercises. Coming up, regulators are proposing broad new rules to govern rapidly growing prediction markets. We've got that exclusive story and more after the break. Not again. Another AI project has ended without any ROI. Close to cracking? Time to meet the Salonis Context Model, which provides AI the operational clarity it needs. Go to C-E-L-O-N-I-S dot com to start getting AI ROI.

4:34In markets news, Trump regulators are proposing new rules for prediction markets. The proposals are due today from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and are designed to limit manipulation and rein in bets that are not in the public interest, even while keeping most of the booming market untouched. And with more, I'm joined by journal reporter Alexander Senator Osipovich. Alex, first off, we should give credit to our colleague Dylan Tokar for landing this scoop. You know these prediction markets well. They've been such a point of public fascination and really red-hot, better enthusiasm. What stands out to you from what the CFTC is proposing here?

5:10Well, the CFTC is beginning to really wrestle with the question of what is okay to bet on in prediction markets and what is not. It is drawing some lines. The proposal, as we understand it, would basically allow sports betting via prediction markets, but there are some caveats to that. For instance, there are certain types of mini sports betting contracts that would likely be off limits. For instance, betting on player injuries, because you can just imagine that that would create perverse incentives if you let people bet on something like that. Where, for instance, Alex, a pitcher could step on the mound and just bean someone and then, I don't know, win a bet.

5:52Yes. The CFTC has indicated that it's uncomfortable with betting contracts on prediction markets where a very, very small number of people could influence the outcome. But the broader project of having CFTC regulated federal sports bets on prediction markets seems like it will get a green light from these regulators. And yet, Alex, we report that the commission wants to have the ability to block certain wagers, but it doesn't appear to actually be proposing any outright bans on certain types of contracts. How is this going to work in practice? The CFTC with this proposal coming today is going to take a pretty hard line on contracts on war, terrorism, or assassination because, again, the perverse incentives that those could create and also the risk of information leakage.

6:38I mean, you can imagine a national security insider who knows about some sort of military operation wanting to go and bet on a war market. So that creates all sorts of interesting risks there. The CFTC is likely to take hard line against those, but mechanically, the way this works is that any contract that a prediction market wants to list kind of comes up for review, and the CFTC needs to essentially strike it down if it considers it against the public interest after carrying out a review. These proposals are sort of guidelines that the CFTC plans to follow in carrying out those reviews. They're hoping that this will be kind of a set of guide posts for prediction markets as they figure out what's kosher to list and what's not.

7:18Alex, have you seen how fast this prediction market has matured and you know how fast a bet can be listed and fulfilled? It's a fast-paced environment. This is more regulation maybe than there was before what's being proposed, but is it enough? This space is moving very fast. Two years ago in the U.S., we did not have legal sports betting on prediction markets. We did not have legal election betting on prediction markets. Under the Trump administration, these prediction markets have basically felt empowered to list all sorts of things that before were considered kind of a gray area or even off limits.

7:52Regulators are just now really beginning to grapple with this. The COTC's proposals coming imminently are a first step in that direction, but there will likely be more regulations. What we're basically seeing is a new body of financial regulation take shape. That's journal reporter Alexander Osipovich. Alex, thanks for stopping by. Thanks for having me. China's factory gate inflation accelerated in May as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to drive up energy and commodity costs. The country's producer price index jumped 3.9 % from a year earlier, surpassing economists' forecasts.

8:26That comes ahead of U.S. inflation numbers due out at 8.30 a.m. Eastern, with a journal survey of economists predicting that CPI surged to 4.2 % in May. And GM is beefing up its energy storage business, and a move the automaker says is designed to boost power grids strained by the data center build-out. I asked Journal Auto's reporter Stephen Wilmot what to make of the move, which comes just weeks after rival Ford announced it would be turning batteries once destined for EVs into stationary energy storage systems. GM is a company that pays a lot of attention to share prices, I would say, and it kind of escaped its attention that Ford's share price is up 24 % over the past month.

9:08Ford was making clear that it was repurposing battery capacity that it previously earmarked for EVs for energy storage. GM is actually betting on a different technology, one that it isn't using for cars now. It's betting on sodium iron as a technology. This is a much-talked-about, potentially disruptive new battery technology that crucially doesn't rely on lithium. Of course, lithium is a metal that, for battery purposes, is totally dominated by China. There's a geopolitical play here where GM is saying this could be not just a better technology for energy storage, but also a geopolitically safer bet.

9:49And that's it for What's News for this Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sandra Killhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening.

10:38Thank you. at Medline.com.