Ahead of the midterms, Americans are embracing political betting
In the election markets, traders can buy shares of a candidate and sell them later. The market prices are set by the buyers and sellers. Political observers study the ever-changing markets to assess candidates’ chances of winning. Government regulators have effectively upended the industry two years ahead of the next presidential election. The PredictIt exchange has 177,000 traders. It operated since 2014 under a “no-action relief” letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. There were 22,00 traders before the 2016 U.S. presidential elections but now there are more than 177.000.
