High Roller Stock More Than Doubles After Crypto.com Deal
Some corners of the gaming industry are continuing to try to join the prediction market industry while regulation remains favorable.
Crypto.com announced a partnership with High Roller on Tuesday to offer event contracts in the United States. High Roller’s stock price rose from $5.20 on Monday evening to $10.77 on Tuesday morning. The stock has since returned to $6.09, a 17% increase since the announcement.
High Roller will operate as a CFTC-registered Introducing Broker and “establish a relationship with Crypto.com’s CFTC-registered Futures Commission Merchant.”
“High Roller brings a premium brand, strong online expertise and an established customer-facing platform to this opportunity,” said Kris Marszalek, Co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com. “Together, we believe we can expand access to regulated event contracts in the United States through a differentiated and highly scalable offering.”
Prediction market partnerships remain viewed as favorable even as event contracts face greater scrutiny.
ProPublica responds to widespread prediction markets
ProPublica announced that it had updated its internal policies to forbid employees from trading on certain prediction markets on Tuesday. The policy prohibits employees from trading on news events, “regardless of whether or not they are involved in coverage of said event.”
It’s the latest attempt for companies to reckon with the scale of prediction markets on such a wide variety of events. The company’s policy clarifies that individuals are responsible for refraining from using inside information to trade on events that even clever traders wouldn’t have access to.
That is consistent with how exchanges have approached inside information. Organizations are traditionally responsible for keeping their members from committing fraud on exchanges. Exchanges then have the duty to flag and investigate suspicious trades.
The traditional approach may change in a new era of regulation.
Legal challenges and concerns over sports
Barron’s published an interview with Gary Gensler, who served as CFTC Chairman from 2009 to 2014. Gensler’s tenure overlapped with the Dodd-Frank amendments that led the CFTC to adopt Rule 40.11. Rule 40.11 lists categories that exchanges are prohibited from listing, though the CFTC retains the discretion to review contracts within these categories.
Gensler told Barron’s that the CFTC never intended for sports contracts to be listed. He also believed that federal CFTC rules weren’t meant to preempt state gaming regulators. In 2024, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam drew on state laws against election betting to support the prohibition of election contracts.
The CFTC’s current permissive attitude will be tested again in the Ninth Circuit on Thursday. Nadex, Kalshi, and Robinhood will argue against Nevada’s restrictions on event contracts.
Kalshi won a victory in the Third Circuit in a split decision affirming the CFTC’s preemption over state regulators. However, Congress has also taken notice of regulatory gaps that some lawmakers hope to fill.
Over a dozen bills have been introduced in 2026 addressing insider trading, treating certain markets as gambling, or prohibiting markets on death or military activities.