Exchange executives call for certainty amid prediction market boom

Speaking on a panel at the FIA BOCA global cleared derivatives event on Tuesday, the chairman and chief executive of CME Group said that an apolitical approach would benefit the market as regulators finalise rulemaking covering the market.

“I think it’s a very difficult situation right now and there needs to be some clarity… the best way for prediction markets, crypto or anything like that to grow is you start to get some good, solid regulation around them that is sustainable through multiple administrations,” Terry Duffy (pictured) said at the event. “Not subject to administrations that are just going to take things up and take things down because of a lack of understanding.

“I think that is the biggest problem we have, especially with crypto and especially with predictions. So I’d like to see new applications and new ways of doing business work, but lets do it in a way that we all understand.”

Adena Friedman, chair and chief executive officer of Nasdaq agreed that consistent rules would be key for the market to thrive.

“We need clear rules of the road, markets thrive when we have consistent regulation,” Friedman said. “It allows investors first of all to be protected. The second thing is that it allows us all to figure out how we can construct products that can be made available to investors in different forms to allow them to express themselves and their views about market outcomes.”

Nasdaq this month applied for Securities and Exchange Commission approval to list and trade outcome-related-option (ORO) contracts on the Nasdaq-100 and Nasdaq-100 micro index.

“We want to make sure that within the confines of the rule base that we operate in we can create a construct that will work for investors,” Friedman said on the panel. “The idea we have is to do it on the Nasdaq 100, so it’s not on an individual stock, its on a basket of stocks and a product that we control.

“We are making it so that its an entry point for investors to come in and try to engage in options with a very simple contract… but with all the protections that our options markets provide to investors.”

Rival Cboe Global Markets this week also laid out their own SEC regulated version, which gives partial payouts through vertical spreads as a contract approaches the defined strike.

Most competitors, like the CME, have opted for Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulations that allow for “swaps” to be traded on defined outcomes.

Thomas Book, member of the executive board at Deutsche Boerse, sounded a note of caution on investor protection measures as these markets proliferate.

“We are in a situation where the regulatory view is very different when you look at Europe and you look at the US,” Book said. “These markets have been made possible by a change in regulatory perspective. Where do you see the need, and where does consumer protection start for people that could be addicted by betting on certain sports events or other things?”

Earlier at the same event, the chairs of both the SEC and CFTC committed to rulemaking and clarity on the nascent markets in separate keynote addresses.