Sporttrade, a regulated prediction market for sports betting, announced its sports betting operations exit from US just 3 months after submission of an application to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for an approval.
Sporttrade New Jersey users were notified about services shut down strated from May 25 and to withdraw their funds before losing access.
Players in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Virginia will have acces to the platfrom until June 25 to remove balances. In this states the platform scheduled to go fully offline on June 26.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission application was tied to its exchange model, which offered prediction‑style positions on sports events.
Alex Kane, Sporttrade’s founder and CEO, said in a statement after the application was submitted:
Today marks the opening of an incredibly exciting chapter of the Sporttrade journey. The CFTC’s market-based regulatory framework enables Sporttrade to provide market participants an elevated level of efficiency, transparency, and consumer protection relative to what we’ve been able to offer to date.
Sporttrade faced a very difficult regulatory process to become the first-ever sports betting exchange in the US.
While competitors Kalshi and Polymarket went after the CFTC immediately, Sporttrade first attempted to secure approval from state gaming regulators in all five of the states in which it operated. The big problem for Sporttrade with this approach to applying for regulatory approval was that it was subject to rules written for traditional sportsbooks, which allowed little to no flexibility for exchange-style platforms.
After realizing that this was not going to work for Sporttrade, it then applied to the CFTC in April of last year. The total length of time from application with the CFTC until receiving regulatory approval was almost 12 months, and required separate filings with both the exchange and clearinghouse.
