Rep. Mike Levin Introduces DEATH BETS Act to Ban Death & War Prediction Contracts
Washington, D.C.—Today, Rep. Mike Levin (CA-49) introduced the House companion bill of the DEATH BETS Act. The bill, H.R. 7942, would explicitly prohibit any Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) registered entity from listing any contract that involves, relates to, or references terrorism, assassination, war, or an individual’s death. Sen. Adam Schiff leads the Senate version of the bill.
“No one should make a profit betting on war and death through prediction markets. While federal law prohibits prediction market contracts on terrorism, war, and assassination, there are still loopholes that allow traders to profit off them,” said Rep. Levin. “The DEATH BETS Act would stop a system that allows individuals to make money off predicting if service members will be put in harm’s way. It is completely unacceptable. I thank Sen. Schiff for his partnership on this bill and look forward to it moving through the legislative process.”
Under the Commodity Exchange Act, the CFTC currently has the authority to prohibit war, terrorism, and assassination contracts from being listed if they are determined by the Commission to be contrary to the public interest. Whether or not these contracts are in the public interest is at the discretion of the CFTC. At a time when CFTC Chair Selig has indicated that he will rewrite the rules on prediction markets, the CFTC can no longer be granted this discretion. The DEATH BETS Act will unequivocally ban these contracts.
The introduction of this bill follows platforms listing prediction contracts relating to war and death, such as whether Iran’s Ali Khamenei would be “out as Supreme Leader" which had $54 million in trading volume on Kalshi before it was paused.
Rep. Levin previously raised alarms on these “death contracts” being offered on offshore exchanges, such as if Maduro would be removed from power and whether the Ukrainian town of Myrnohad would be captured by Russian forces.
The bill would:
- codify a prohibition on war, assassination, and terrorism contracts,
- explicitly prohibits contracts that involve death or may otherwise be construed to closely correlate with death, which is not currently referenced in the Commodity Exchange Act.
The bill was assigned to the House Committee on Agriculture.
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