Mulvaney warns prediction markets not to assume Trump support for sports event contracts
Mick Mulvaney, former White House chief of staff under President Trump, cautioned prediction market operators not to assume automatic presidential backing for sports event contracts. Speaking at an event on July 9, Mulvaney said he is ''very much aware of who the players are,'' suggesting Trump may not yet have a formed opinion on the product category. His remarks add political uncertainty to an already embattled sector.
Mulvaney's signal that Trump lacks a settled view strips prediction markets of a political backstop they had begun to count on. Kalshi and Polymarket are already stretched across five simultaneous state fights — Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Kentucky, and New Mexico — plus a CFTC lawsuit against Minnesota's felony ban and a bipartisan Senate bill to ban sports contracts outright. A White House that stays neutral or turns hostile removes the last plausible federal firewall against state enforcement.
Operators must now plan for a world where neither courts nor the executive branch guarantees preemption. That raises the odds of market-by-market retreat and geofencing rather than one clean federal victory. Legal budgets that were sized for state litigation now likely need room for congressional lobbying too. The first platform to secure a concrete White House meeting — or fail to — will set the industry template.