The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has published an Interim Final Rule excluding casino-style gambling products, including wagers placed on sportsbooks and casino games, from the definition of a “swap.”
The rule, Release Number 9309-26, dated October 9, 2026, codifies a position the CFTC says it has long held rather than announcing a new policy. The agency frames the move as clarifying the limits of its regulatory remit, in line with how it has treated other products historically regulated by the states.
A boundary, not a takeover
The distinction matters because the “swap” definition decides which products fall under CFTC oversight under the Commodity Exchange Act. Sportsbook and casino wagers sit outside it, which leaves them with the state gambling regulators that have licensed them.
“Casino-style gambling products are not derivatives,” Chairman Michael S. Selig said in the release.
“Just as the CFTC has done with respect to other products historically regulated by the states, the Commission today provides clarity regarding the limits of its regulatory remit by codifying the exclusion of casino-style gambling products from the ‘swap’ definition,” Selig said.
Effective now, comments later
The rule takes effect immediately upon publication in the Federal Register, and written comments must be submitted via Regulations.gov within 30 days of that publication. The release does not state the Federal Register publication date, so both the effective date and the comment deadline remain open until it appears.
The same day, the CFTC separately sought public comment on a proposed rule on event contracts as swaps, a distinct rulemaking at a different stage from the Interim Final Rule.
The line the CFTC drew sits in the middle of a running dispute over prediction markets and state regulatory authority, one that has already produced litigation involving event-contract operators, with 34 states joining a legal case against a prediction-market operator’s sports markets this year. Publication of the codified rule in the Federal Register is the next scheduled step.
Petra Vanhoof has spent the better part of a decade following the shifting tides of gambling regulation across Europe and beyond. She came up through the compliance side of the industry before pivoting to writing, which gives her a grounded, no-nonsense perspective on the rules, loopholes, and political maneuvering that shape how operators actually do business. She is particularly drawn to the gap between what regulators say and what the market ends up doing in response.