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The article scrutinizes an attempt by the Kalshi Inc. startup company to introduce event markets gambling in the U.S. Regulation of event markets by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Division of Market Oversight is described along with biographical information on Kalshi founders Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour. The extent of the company's political lobbying is described along with the prevalence of insider trading in events markets compared to securities trading.

The article focuses on Paul Commins, also know as "Cuddles," an oil stock trader in Essex, England, who started buying and selling oil within London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in the 1980s and who made millions during the April 20, 2020, oil stock crash. The incident, causing crude oil prices to go negative, and the role of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures is explained.

When Lopes Lara and Mansour approached the CFTC in the spring of 2019, some officials in the part of the agency responsible for reviewing their application, the Division of Market Oversight, were skeptical, according to interviews with people who were directly involved in the process and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details are confidential. These were among the issues that senior figures within the regulator flagged when Lopes Lara and Mansour pitched the CFTC. (Bloomberg Businessweek) -- On Nov. 3, 2020, Election Day, two young entrepreneurs received a call from the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with some important news. [Extracted from the article]

But there are thousands of other coins, and Gensler believes most are unregistered securities that must comply with SEC rules. (Bloomberg Businessweek) -- It's become a parlor game in Washington, on Wall Street, and in Silicon Valley to figure out where U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler stands on cryptocurrencies. [Extracted from the article]

On Friday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the board, fired chairman William Duhnke III. A whole new five-member board slate including Duhnke as chairman was put forward by Trump-appointed SEC head Jay Clayton in late 2017 - and unanimously supported, including by the one Democrat on the commission at the time. (Bloomberg Businessweek) -- For a Washington regulator that pretty much nobody has heard of, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is suddenly getting a lot of attention - and for all the wrong reasons. [Extracted from the article]

Trading in the football futures would be limited to licensed sportsbooks, vendors, and companies that agree to help set prices and take the other side of trades as market makers. Even if individuals are never allowed to trade such futures, giving gaming companies the ability to transfer some of their risk would allow casinos to accept more - and larger - wagers. The disparity, ErisX and Ifrah say, could be eased by the gaming company buying or selling futures contracts on games it's concerned about. [Extracted from the article]

As it fell, Commins and his friends sold batches of regular WTI contracts, just like in the example above, as well as calendar spreads, another financial instrument that allows traders to bet on the future price of oil. In 2012, Dutch company Optiver Holding BV was fined $14 million and three of its employees were temporarily banned from trading commodities after the CFTC accused the company of manipulating settlement prices. Craig Pirrong, a finance professor at the University of Houston, published a paper last year suggesting that market participants can build a large position through TAS with very little impact on prices, then offset it in the regular market in a way that moves prices - an "asymmetry", he argued, that invites manipulation. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- The Trump administration has cracked open the door for private equity funds to get into 401(k) workplace retirement plans. Private equity is a different beast from the mutual funds retirement savers are familiar with. But this may mean that savers will have to read the fine print to know whether some of their money is in a private equity fund. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Tesla Exposes SEC Challenges Often Exploited by Tech Titans In 2005 the SEC passed rules to ease restrictions on corporate communications during an SEC-imposed "quiet period" before an initial public offering. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Wyoming Is Vying to Be the Wild West of Cryptocurrency State Representative Tyler Lindholm, a Republican who sponsored key parts of the blockchain legislation, says Wyoming takes in $30 million in registration and other filing fees, while Delaware takes in more than 40 times as much. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Regulator's Embrace of "Cryptodad" Twitter Fame Comes at a Cost Erica Richardson, a CFTC spokeswoman, says Giancarlo "views Twitter as a valuable platform to reach diverse audiences on customer education.". [Extracted from the article]

The CFTC, a government agency created in 1974 to monitor agricultural futures and less well-known than the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has an opportunity to increase its profile by becoming a key regulator in this new market. Giancarlo, a former executive at a swaps brokerage firm who became an agency commissioner in 2014 and chairman last year, is fond of referring to the CFTC as a "21st century regulator." Giancarlo, in an interview, took pains to point out that the CFTC "did not approve" the new futures products. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg) -- Bureaucrats' Revenge: Government Careerists Thwart Trump Agenda Pentagon staffers effectively stalled a Trump reversal of an Obama policy on climate change and national security by initiating a review that's apparently still underway nine months later. In March, for example, Trump, flanked by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and coal miners, signed an order that rescinded some Obama policies to fight climate change. But he said he expects more career staff to start doing so, as more of the Trump administration's specific policy initiatives make their way through the bureaucracy. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- America's Quality Pot Is Changing the Drug War By 2020, if marijuana were fully legalized, American sales might reach $35 billion, says Matt Karnes, a former media analyst at First Union Securities who now runs New York-based cannabis researcher GreenWave Advisors. A fan of the U.S. television series Weeds, about a drug-dealing single mom, Pallán, 38, hopes to go to California to attend Oakland's Oaksterdam University, which calls itself the first "marijuana college.". [Extracted from the article]

As head of the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's largest, Guzman was a ruthless enforcer of discipline. Chicago, whose crime commission formally labeled Guzman as "Public Enemy Number One" in 2013, now feels the impact of El Chapo in a different way. The bottom line: The fall of cartel chief Joaquin Guzman has rearranged the violent and lucrative Chicago-Juárez drug trade. [Extracted from the article]

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including "Mississippi Gives Her Colored Kids a Break," in the November 22 issue, "I Tracked Down the Rebel Yell," by H. Allen Smith in the December 6 issue, and "The Russians Can Be Stopped in Europe," by Hanson W. Baldwin in the November 29 issue.