President Donald Trump on Thursday bemoaned to reporters the surge of interest in gambling and prediction markets in recent years, but he and his administration have been all in on the phenomenon, an NBC News review shows.
"You know, the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino. And you look at what’s going on all over the world and Europe, and every place they’re doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually, but it is what it is now," Trump said when asked in the Oval Office about people who had placed lucrative bets centered around the Iran war.
"I think that I’m not happy with any of that stuff, but they have all these different sites of predictive markets. It’s a crazy world. It’s a much different world than it was," he said.
During the same exchange, he appeared to downplay the seriousness of the criminal charges filed by the Justice Department this week against a U.S. special forces soldier who is accused of using his knowledge about the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to win almost $400,000 on Polymarket.
Trump said he was not familiar with the case, but compared it to the scandal involving late baseball great Pete Rose, Major League Baseball's all-time hits leader. Rose was banned from the game in 1989 for betting on the Cincinnati Reds while playing for and managing the team.
Following public pressure from Trump, Major League Baseball announced last year it was posthumously removing Rose from its permanently ineligible list, potentially paving the way for his inclusion in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team. It’s a little like Pete Rose," Trump said of the charges against the special forces soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke.
"Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team. I’ll look into it," Trump said.
The president may soon have his own stake in the predictions business — Trump Media announced in October it would be making prediction markets available on its Truth Social website through an exclusive arrangement with Crypto.com. Trump transferred his majority shares in the company into a revocable trust before he was sworn into office. His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is the sole trustee.
“President Trump has been crystal clear: while he seeks a strong and profitable stock market for everyone, members of Congress and other government officials should be prohibited from using nonpublic information for financial benefit," White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement Friday in response to questions about Trump's remarks. The only special interest that will ever guide President Trump is the best interest of the American people.”
The Trump Media announcement said the feature would "begin Beta testing live on Truth Social in the near future, followed by a full launch in the United States. Subsequently, Trump Media plans to launch the service globally once all the requisite requirements are met."
The White House said in a statement last month that everything the president is doing is aboveboard.
“The President has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” White House counsel David Warrington said. “President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious,” the statement said.
Trump Jr., meanwhile, is an investor in Polymarket and a strategic adviser to Kalshi, its top competitor. A representative for Trump Jr. last month said he was not involved in any discussions the government might have with the companies.
“Don does not interface with the federal government as part of his role with any company that he invests in or advises and has no influence or involvement with administration policies relating to prediction markets,” the representative said in a statement.
Gambling was in the family business well before Trump was president — he owned numerous casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the 1980s, and boasted about their glamor and success. He later spoke out against others in the industry, testifying before Congress in the 1990s against casinos that would be operated by Native American reservations, accusing his potential competitors of having mob ties.
Trump’s casinos eventually went into bankruptcy, but he spoke out in favor of online gaming legislation in 2011.
“This has to happen because many other countries are doing it and like usual the U.S. is just missing out,” Forbes quoted Trump as saying at the time.
During his second term in office, Trump's administration has made several moves to help online betting markets, including ending a Biden-era push to restrict Polymarket's U.S. operations.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department and the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed suit against the states of Connecticut, Arizona and Illinois over their efforts to regulate prediction market sites.
The CFTC contends in the suit only it has power to oversee the sites.
“The CFTC will continue to safeguard its exclusive regulatory authority over these markets and defend market participants against overzealous state regulators,” CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in a written statement to The Associated Press.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told the news service the states would fight the CFTC's efforts. “These contracts are plainly unlicensed illegal gambling under time-worn state law, and we will aggressively defend Connecticut’s commonsense consumer protection laws,” he said.
Selig said in January that his agency’s intention is to support the “responsible development” of prediction markets, stressing “the important role they play in the broader financial system.”
In an interview earlier this year with the Washington Reporter, Selig said his agency is performing oversight.
“There’s this false media narrative that CFTC-regulated markets are the Wild West and have no regulation and that’s blatantly false,” he said. “The CFTC uses complex surveillance tools and has seasoned career staff that pro-actively monitor these markets for insider trading and fraud.”
The CFTC has also issued guidance reminding prediction market platforms of their responsibilities to limit insider trading and on Thursday brought a separate civil case against the special forces soldier who was charged.
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said in a post on X on Friday, "We work proactively with all relevant authorities on any suspicious activity on our marketplace. We flagged this, referred it, and cooperated throughout the process. This happens constantly behind the scenes, despite what many are led to believe. The transparency afforded by onchain markets makes global compliance more effective than ever. Every trade is public, permanent, and auditable. Bad actors leave a trail."
