Trump Set to Meet Crypto and Prediction Market Leaders at White House Ahead of CFTC Committee Launch

President Donald Trump is expected to meet with senior executives from the cryptocurrency, prediction market, and artificial intelligence industries at the White House this week, according to multiple people familiar with the planning. The gathering, reportedly set for the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, arrives just one day before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s newly formed Innovation Advisory Committee holds its first official meeting.

For anyone who follows sports betting, the timing matters. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have spent the past year building out sports-adjacent event contracts that function a lot like moneylines, spreads, and player props — without the state-by-state licensing that traditional sportsbooks operate under. That regulatory gray area is now getting direct attention from the top levels of the federal government.

Who’s Actually in the Room

CFTC Chairman Mike Selig is expected to attend, along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. Reports have also named SEC Chair Paul Atkins as a likely attendee. On the industry side, invitees reportedly include executives from Coinbase, Ripple, Chainlink, and Kalshi, among others tied to the crypto and prediction market space.

The meeting is widely viewed as a kickoff for the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, a 35-member panel Selig assembled earlier this year to replace the agency’s old Technology Advisory Committee. Notably, the panel includes several names that sports bettors will recognize: Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, FanDuel president Christian Genetski, and Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev all hold seats.

Why Prediction Markets Are on the Agenda

The committee’s inaugural session is scheduled to run three sessions covering crypto asset regulation, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets specifically. The prediction markets segment is expected to dig into the growth of event contracts, and — most importantly for the sports betting industry — the ongoing jurisdictional fight between the CFTC and individual states.

That fight has escalated quickly. The CFTC has already sued nine states over their attempts to regulate or restrict event-contract platforms, arguing federal law gives it exclusive authority over these products as derivatives. Meanwhile, several states and cities have pushed back hard. New York sued Kalshi in late July seeking to shut down its operations and recover profits, and Baltimore’s mayor and city council sued both Kalshi and Polymarket days before this week’s meeting, alleging the platforms offered unlicensed sports contracts — including moneylines, spreads, and player-performance markets — without the licensing Maryland requires for sports betting.

Adding another layer, the CFTC is reportedly conducting an internal review into so-called “mention markets,” contracts where users bet on whether specific words will be said during a speech, earnings call, or broadcast. Kalshi has already pulled its sports-related mention markets amid that scrutiny, while Polymarket — which doesn’t offer mention markets on its CFTC-regulated U.S. exchange — has largely avoided the issue domestically.

What It Means for the Betting Industry

For traditional sportsbooks, the stakes are straightforward: if prediction markets can keep offering sports-style contracts under federal derivatives law while operating outside the licensing framework that applies to books like DraftKings and FanDuel, it creates an uneven playing field in states that have legalized and taxed traditional sports betting. That’s part of why DraftKings and FanDuel — despite competing directly with prediction markets for betting dollars — have also taken on market-maker roles on some of these platforms, hedging their bets on how the regulatory picture shakes out.

An advisory committee doesn’t have rulemaking power on its own — it can only make recommendations that the CFTC is free to adopt, ignore, or fold into future rulemaking. Nothing changes for prediction market users the day after this week’s meetings. But the optics of a sitting president convening crypto and prediction market leaders at the White House, right before a federal committee stacked with industry executives meets to discuss state-versus-federal jurisdiction, signals where Washington may be leaning on this fight.

With roughly a dozen states now in active legal conflict with Kalshi and Polymarket, either through lawsuits or cease-and-desist orders, the outcome of this jurisdictional battle could reshape how bettors access event contracts — and how traditional sportsbooks compete with them — for years to come.