A senator tried to ban gambling on prediction markets—now she's a Kalshi lobbyist
Ars Technica Jon Brodkin
Blanche Lincoln once warned prediction markets could be used for gambling. Now she’s lobbying for Kalshi to loosen the rules on those same contracts.
Based on reporting by Ars Technica, Jon Brodkin — read the original for the full story.
Summary, retelling and take written by AI under human oversight; images are AI-generated illustrations. How we work · Report an error
Back in July 2010, Blanche Lincoln was on the Senate floor arguing that prediction markets could slip past gambling laws if they were left too loose. Her example was sports: Super Bowl bets, Kentucky Derby bets, Masters bets. The point, she said, was that these event contracts would have no real commercial use and would basically be gambling by another name.
That warning came during debate over the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the law that later became part of the framework for regulating prediction markets. Lincoln played a key role in shaping that law. She was, in other words, arguing for a tighter fence around the very thing she now wants to let out.
Now Lincoln is working as a lobbyist for Kalshi, a prediction market firm. She has urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to allow sports gambling on those markets. The shift is sharp enough on its own; the money attached to it makes the turn even clearer.
Her firm has taken in $480,000 from Kalshi since 2024. The stated job is lobbying Congress and the CFTC for looser rules on event contracts. That puts Lincoln on the other side of the argument she once made in public, using her old Washington experience to help a company push for the kind of market she once said should not exist in that form.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is classic Washington: the people who warn about a loophole are often the first ones hired to widen it. Kalshi didn’t just buy access; it bought a former skeptic, which is the cleanest possible reminder that lobbying is basically a second career built on memory with the inconvenient parts sanded off.
Read more about this at: Ars Technica
