The Federal Reserve is cracking down on Luigi Mangione’s bets on gambling sites

You can’t legally put money on Luigi Mangione’s fate in the United States. Kalshi, one of the only legal prediction markets, pulled all bets on the UnitedHealthcare killer in mid-December, citing problems from federal regulators.

From sports betting to Counter-Strike, gambling is having a moment in America. Punters who want to bet on something besides the outcome of a football match use prediction markets, which are sites where they can bet on the outcomes of binary-score events. Sites like Polymarket, PredicIt, and Kalshi It exploded in popularity During the past year.

Popular bets on the direction of the site with the news. During the last few months of the election, gamblers bet big on Trump, Kamala, and the future of liberal Western democracy. After Luigi Mangione shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the streets of Manhattan, his fate became the focus of the prediction market.

Unless those markets are examined by US regulatory agencies. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversees prediction markets like Kalshi and PredictIt. On December 13, all Magione-related bets disappeared from the sites. According to BloombergCalci removed Mangione-related bets from its sites after receiving “notice from… regulators.” The CFTC “prohibits trading in futures contracts linked to crimes including assassination, terrorism, and war if the agency determines that so-called juvenile contracts are contrary to the public interest,” the outlet writes.

At Polymarket, all bets related to assassins are active. “Will Luigi Mangione fire his lawyer before 2025?” Polymarket has possibilities in… Only 1 percent. “Will it be confirmed that Luigi Mangione used the drug?” Users Give it a 43 percent chance. “Luigi Mangione Motivated by Denied Allegations?” On December 10, Polymarket had a 75 percent chance, but it was It decreased to about 25 percent.

There is no high volume to any of the Mangione-related bets. For more than $400,000, “Is Luigi Mangione’s YouTube channel real?” I carried the largest size. But the viral YouTube channel has been around for a long time It has been debunked as fake. The question about his motives is $183,000, but all other markets have failed to exceed $100,000. Prediction markets take a percentage of the bets and Kalshi and PredictIt probably don’t lose much money by losing bets associated with the killers.

At Polymarket, big political questions and sports bets move more money. The fate of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol-ho Worth one million dollarsGerman parliamentary elections Worth $4 millionAnd Biden’s potential pardon of Sam Bankman-Fried is worth it Nearly $3 million. People died like that Nearly $7 million Predict which song will top the US pop charts on Spotify. Mangione is not just a hot market.

The CFTC’s move to remove Mangione-related bets from Calci is the latest in its ongoing battle against prediction sites. Regulating the types of bets people can place on sites like Kalshi and PredictIt has been attempted several times. Earlier this year, it was I tried to stop The sites allow people to bet on elections, sporting events and celebrations such as the Oscars. But the US Court of Appeals Overturn the ruling In October, in time for elections.

At Polymarket, bets flow freely, but the drive is not going well with the regulators. In November, the F.B.I An apartment in New York City was raided Polymarket CEO Shane Coplan.