Hellcatraz II

What is Hellcatraz II?

Playtech on Wednesday published a statement highlighting what it claimed were compliance failures at Evolution, written into the Spectrum report.

Within the report, Spectrum alleged “concerns around the availability of Evolution’s games in certain prohibited markets, the regulatory implications of its practices, and the lack of proactive monitoring of its customers”.

However the report confirms that Spectrum did not believe Evolution had engaged in any illegal practices. 

About Hellcatraz II

Each Supreme Court term begins on the first Monday in October and runs through late June or early July. The court typically receives about 7,000-8,000 writ petitions and grants about 80, or 1%, each term. Four of the nine sitting justices must vote to accept a case. Five current justices – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor – were on the bench in 2018 for the PASPA case.

There are no SCOTUS-prediction market contracts currently on Kalshi but Polymarket lists a 41% probability that the court will accept an event contract case by 31 December.

A hearing before the Supreme Court would be the culmination of what has been the biggest sports betting-related development since PASPA. Perhaps no other issue has united gaming stakeholders from various companies, tribes, states and regulators.

About Hellcatraz II

A Bank of America study released on 1 September found that the median deposit account balance of households that participated in online betting was 59% higher than households that avoided the activity. As prediction markets rapidly expand alongside traditional sports betting, the findings have prompted “some to blur the lines between entertainment and investment”, according to a proprietary study undertaken by BofA.

The ongoing battle between states’ rights advocates and those who support federal regulations in sports trading is not black and white. Carton indicated in his monologue that engaging in the trading of sports-event contracts amounts to unregulated gambling. Designated Contracts Markets, better known as prediction markets, are regulated on the federal level by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

On Wednesday, a CFTC deputy general counsel posted an ad on LinkedIn for a senior position with the commission. It appears that the attorney is seeking assistance in crafting formal rules for event contracts, a set of regulations he described as the “most impactful” the commission has written “in decades”.