In the United States, a legal, real-money prediction market is a regulated derivatives exchange. This is the full registry of those venues — the consumer brand, the legal exchange behind it, the clearing house that stands behind the trades, and where each one sits with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Every entity and filing number below was checked against the CFTC's own registers, and the dates reflect those records as of August 2026.
The space is easy to misread, because the brand you see is rarely the entity that holds the license. "Polymarket US" is legally an exchange called QCX LLC. "DKeX" is a DraftKings brand over an exchange called Railbird. "Rothera" is the venue formerly known as LedgerX. "UDX" is Underdog's brand over Aristotle Exchange. Getting the registry right means separating three roles that the CFTC regulates independently: the exchange, the clearing house, and the broker.
The entity stack: DCM, DCO, FCM
A CFTC-regulated market is assembled from separately registered pieces. Once you can see the pieces, the whole landscape reads more clearly. (For the one-line version of the regulatory label, see our glossary entry on CFTC-regulated venues.)
The exchange, where orders execute. This is the registration that makes a venue a legal U.S. market, open to retail under CFTC oversight.
The clearing house that stands behind every trade. Some exchanges self-clear as one entity; others split it into a sibling company.
The broker that can carry customer money. Several of these venues let retail trade directly, with no broker in between.
The distinction between the exchange (DCM) and its clearing house (DCO) is the one that trips people up most, and it's the backbone of the registry below. When a single company holds both registrations, we call it self-clearing. When two sibling companies split the roles, we show both.
The brand is the storefront, the DCM is the exchange where trades happen, and the DCO is the vault standing behind them. Sorting out which company plays which role — across brands that borrow, rename, and acquire one another — is the whole exercise.
The event-contract exchanges
Eight CFTC-designated exchanges are live and trading, and event and prediction contracts are their current product focus. Two of them did not start that way — Nadex was designated in 2004 as a binary-options venue, and Rothera was designated in 2019 as LedgerX — so read this as where each exchange is today, not what it was built for. Each entry below is confirmed against the exchange's own order of designation. Several have their own in-depth profiles: Kalshi, Polymarket US, ProphetX, DKeX, Rothera, and UDX.
The first exchange designated purely for event contracts.
Exchange and clearing house are separate entities under common ownership. The January 2025 amendment modified its order of designation to permit intermediated futures trading — not, as is often reported, to authorize elections markets.
The U.S.-regulated exchange, distinct from global Polymarket.
Polymarket acquired the already-designated QCX exchange to enter the U.S.; the CFTC registration is still "QCX LLC." A November 2025 amendment opened the door to broker-carried accounts.
Interactive Brokers' event exchange.
The exchange clears its own trades — a single entity registered as both the DCM and the DCO. A subsidiary of Interactive Brokers.
One legal exchange operating under two brands.
Nadex and Crypto.com's U.S. derivatives venue are the same legal entity (formerly HedgeStreet). It runs binary and event-style contracts and clears them itself.
DraftKings' exchange — legally, Railbird.
"DKeX" is a DraftKings product name; the CFTC-registered exchange is Railbird Exchange, LLC, which DraftKings acquired in 2025. Its trades clear through Bitnomial under 2026 relief.
The newest exchange — live since June 2026.
A rebrand of Prophet Exchange, a former New Jersey sports-betting exchange. It's the first sports-native venue to hold both its exchange and clearing registrations.
Formerly LedgerX — repositioned for event contracts.
Not a new venue: the exchange once known as LedgerX (later MIAXdx), renamed in January 2026 under Robinhood and Susquehanna ownership and pivoted into event contracts.
Formerly Aristotle Exchange — acquired by Underdog, live since July 2026.
Underdog acquired Aristotle Exchange in March 2026 and launched trading as UDX on July 18, 2026. The legal entities are unchanged; Underdog separately holds Futures Commission Merchant registration.
Other designated exchanges
A handful of other exchanges hold CFTC designations and may list event contracts, but their focus isn't yet established from their public filings. We list what the CFTC record confirms — the entity, its designation date, and its clearing house — and leave the rest until it's verifiable rather than inferred from a name.
| Exchange (DCM) | Designated | Clearing (DCO) |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini Titan, LLC | 2025-12-10 | Gemini Olympus, LLC split · 2026-04-29 |
| Electron Exchange DCM, LLC | 2025-08-29 | Electron Exchange DCO self · 2025-08-25 |
| Quanta Exchange, Inc. | 2025-05-30 | Quanta Clear application pending |
| Xchange Alpha, LLC | 2026-01-30 | — |
| Optex Markets LLC | 2026-07 | Optex Clearing application pending |
Designated but not yet trading
Three exchanges hold DCM designations with an event-contract focus but have no public trading yet. They are not in the registry above because that grid is limited to venues actually live.
| Exchange (DCM) | Designated | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Juice Exchange, LLC JuiceX | 2026-07 | Event and prediction venue; has said it will list sports event contracts. The company announced its designation in August; the CFTC record dates it to July |
| Water Street Labs, LLC | 2026-07 | Reported as an event-contracts exchange; little else public |
| Ludlow Exchange, LLC | 2026-06-16 | The DCM behind Novig. A sports prediction exchange by product focus; no public feed |
Applications on file
The pipeline is crowded. These exchanges have applications on file with the CFTC but are not yet designated. Several are recognizable names from betting and prediction markets — the next wave of venues, if they clear review.
| Applicant (DCM) | Filed | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 365Prediction, LLC | 2026-06-10 | Event-contract applicant |
| Eventive III, LLC | 2026-05-20 | Paired clearing application on file |
| Limitless Markets US, LLC | 2026-05-01 | Crypto-native prediction market |
| Smarkets Board of Trade Exchange LLC | 2026-03-03 | Established betting/prediction exchange |
| PredictCraft Mkt Inc. DimeTrades | 2026-02-11 | Event-contract applicant |
| Sporttrade DCM LLC | 2026-01-27 | Sports-outcome markets |
| tZERO DCM, LLC | 2025-11-21 | Tokenized-securities operator |
| Bullish Markets LLC | 2026-05-07 | Crypto exchange operator |
Also on file: Six Markets, TLD Markets, XV Exchange, RSBIX, PMEX Markets, and OneChronos Markets. (Juice Exchange, Optex Markets and Water Street Labs have since been designated and moved out of this list.)
Look-alikes that aren't CFTC exchanges
Several well-known venues resemble the ones above but sit outside this framework entirely. For a clean registry, they belong in their own bucket — and the distinctions matter.
| Venue | Regime | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| PredictIt | No-action letter | Not a CFTC exchange. It runs under a CFTC no-action letter — a research exception capped at 5,000 traders and $850 per contract — and stayed open after a 2025 federal court ruling. |
| Cboe Predicts | SEC · OCC | An SEC-regulated securities product cleared by the Options Clearing Corporation, not a CFTC exchange. A different regulator entirely. |
| CME event contracts | Self-certified | The established futures exchange has begun listing event contracts (including a FanDuel-branded line) under its existing registration, rather than as a dedicated prediction-market venue. |
| Polymarket (global) | Offshore | The original, blockchain-based Polymarket is offshore and not CFTC-regulated. Its U.S.-licensed sibling, Polymarket US, is the regulated exchange in the registry above. |
| Intrade | Defunct | A defunct offshore precedent. The CFTC sued it in 2012; it left the U.S. market and later settled for $3 million. |
The regulation is still being written
The biggest open question isn't which venues exist — it's what they'll be allowed to list. The CFTC's approach is mid-rewrite: a proposed rule replacing the categorical approach with a case-by-case public-interest test drew comments through July 27, 2026 and has not been finalized.
- 2024-06-10The CFTC proposes the "Event Contracts" rule, which would have restricted contracts tied to gaming, war, and terrorism.
- 2025-09-30Staff issues an advisory on certain contract markets.
- 2026-02-04The CFTC withdraws both the 2024 proposal and the advisory, reopening the question.CFTC Release 9179-26
- 2026-03-16An advance proposal gathers roughly 3,500 public comments.
- 2026-06-10A new proposed rule, "Prediction Markets; Public Interest Determinations," replaces the categorical approach with a case-by-case public-interest test.91 FR 35806
- 2026-07-27The public comment period closed. The rule has not been finalized.
- 2026-08-11The CFTC invokes emergency authority under CEA § 8a(9), ordering Kalshi to maintain operations in response to New York's suit — a federal directive to keep trading, against a state proceeding seeking to stop it. Reporting describes this as the first use of the provision in decades.CFTC Release 9281-26
That last entry is the sharpest expression of the whole conflict. A federally registered exchange has been ordered by its federal regulator to keep operating in a state whose courts and attorney general are simultaneously trying to shut it down. Nothing resolves that tension except an appellate ruling on preemption — which is why the circuit-level cases matter more than any single state's enforcement action.
For how this intersects with the state-versus-federal fight over sports contracts specifically, see are prediction markets legal in the U.S.? A federal designation is necessary but not sufficient: where each of these venues can actually operate is decided state by state, which we track in the state-by-state legality map and the litigation tracker.
How this registry was sourced
Every exchange and clearing entity above was checked against the CFTC's public filing databases for Trading Organizations (the exchanges) and Clearing Organizations (the clearing houses), and, for the eight live event-contract exchanges, against the underlying orders of designation and registration. Names and filing numbers reflect those primary records; dates reflect them as of August 2026, except where an amended order exists whose date the CFTC's public index does not print — those are marked as amended without a specific day rather than guessed at. Where the CFTC record and press coverage disagreed on a date, we used the date printed in the order. A few newer designations whose event-contract focus isn't yet established from their filings are listed as such, rather than guessed at.
This page is a factual reference, not legal or investment advice. Registration status changes; we date it so it ages honestly, and revisit it as the picture shifts.
Common questions
How many prediction markets are CFTC-regulated?
Eight CFTC-designated exchanges are live and trading with event and prediction contracts as their current focus — Kalshi, Polymarket US, ForecastEx, Crypto.com/Nadex, DKeX (legally Railbird), ProphetX, Rothera, and UDX (legally Aristotle Exchange). Several more hold designations with an emerging event-contract focus, and a large pipeline of applications is on file.
What's the difference between a DCM and a DCO?
A DCM (Designated Contract Market) is the exchange where trades happen. A DCO (Derivatives Clearing Organization) is the clearing house that stands behind those trades. Some exchanges self-clear as a single entity; others split the two roles into sibling companies under common ownership.
Is Polymarket CFTC-regulated?
The global, blockchain-based Polymarket is offshore and not CFTC-regulated. Polymarket US — legally the exchange QCX LLC — is a separate, CFTC-designated venue. They are different entities operating under different rules.