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FutureSports has inked a deal with Major League Baseball (MLB) to launch performance-based financial indexes for all 30 MLB franchises, marking the company’s latest expansion into professional sports markets.
As part of the accord, MLB will supply FutureSports with official league data “that the company will use to create new broad-based CME FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI)” on each MLB team. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.
CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) and the index provider announced a partnership in July. With the MLB deal in place, the exchange operator will offer derivatives based on the baseball indexes.
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On Wednesday, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced that her office had filed a petition for writ of certiorari following an appeals court verdict from earlier this year that went in favour of prediction markets. That 2-1 verdict from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was handed down in April, and New Jersey had until Thursday to petition the high court.
The petition poses the question of whether the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was enacted in 2010 in the aftermath of the Great Recession, “preempted states from regulating sports bets that occur within their jurisdictions if those bets are offered on markets registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission”. Prediction markets have argued that their event contracts are financial derivatives regulated by the CFTC whereas many states contend that they are simply sports bets by another name.
There is no guarantee the Supreme Court will hear the case but a separate appeals court ruling from 28 August bolsters its chances. In that case, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit ruled unanimously in favour of the state of Nevada, creating a circuit court split, which is a hallmark of many Supreme Court cases.
What is Happy Scratch?
Spectrum blames Evolution’s “ineffective complaince procedures”, noting these activities appeared to go undetected by the supplier.
“In our judgment, Evolution’s ineffective compliance procesures have allowed these situations to develop and therefore need prompt reevaluation and enhancement in order to comply fully with the terms of the contracts,” the report reads.
“Evolution may be unwittingly susceptible to having its games played through third-party operators, in violation of its contracts…”
