Failed CFTC Chair Nominee Brian Quintenz Joins Coalition for Prediction Markets as Senior Advisor
Brian Quintenz, whose nomination to lead the CFTC was pulled by President Trump last year, has become a senior advisor to the prediction market industry's lobbying group.
Brian Quintenz, who was nominated last year to chair the Commodity Futures Trading Commission only to have his nomination pulled by President Donald Trump in October, has found a new role in the prediction market space. The Coalition for Prediction Markets announced Wednesday that it has brought Quintenz aboard as a senior advisor.
The move places a former top CFTC official directly inside the advocacy arm fighting for the prediction market industry at a moment when operators like Kalshi and Polymarket are facing an intensifying wave of state-level lawsuits over their sports-related contracts.
A Familiar Face for a Growing Advocacy Group
The Coalition for Prediction Markets is a prediction market advocacy group whose members include Kalshi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Robinhood, and Underdog. Quintenz is the former global head of policy at a16z crypto and a former CFTC commissioner, and he initially appeared well positioned to be confirmed as CFTC chair before his nomination was withdrawn.
His hiring gives the coalition a policy voice with direct experience inside the federal agency that both prediction market operators and state regulators argue should have exclusive — or no — authority over sports-related event contracts, depending on which side of the debate is speaking.
Timing Coincides With Escalating Legal Battles
Quintenz joins the prediction markets coalition as Kalshi fights enforcement actions in more than a dozen states, including a fresh setback this week in New York, where a federal judge rejected the company’s attempt to block state gambling enforcement against its sports contracts. Nevada regulators have separately asked a court to hold Kalshi in contempt for allegedly continuing to operate in the state despite a court order barring it from doing so.
The CFTC itself has taken a position favorable to prediction market operators at the federal level, suing New York in April to seek a declaratory judgment establishing exclusive federal jurisdiction over event contracts, and backing Kalshi before an Ohio federal appeals court in May. With Quintenz now advising the industry’s advocacy group from the outside, the coalition adds a veteran regulatory voice as the fight over how — and whether — states can regulate prediction markets heads toward what many attorneys expect could become a Supreme Court question.