44 States Signed the Letter Against the CFTC. The 5 That Didn't Have Something in Common.

In July, 44 state attorneys general signed a letter telling the CFTC to back off sports prediction markets. Five states didn't sign: Texas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and New Hampshire.

What the five holdouts actually have

Texas has no legal sports betting at all. Neither does Georgia. Florida runs one operator, the Seminole Tribe, under a deal that runs through 2051. New Hampshire also runs one operator, DraftKings, through a lottery deal. Missouri only turned its market on in December of last year, eight months before this letter went out.

Now look at the other 44. Most of them have a real, working sports betting market. More than one licensed operator. Real tax money coming in every month. That's something a prediction market could actually take a bite out of.

This is our read, not a quote

Nobody at these five offices has said this out loud. No AG has stood up and said we skipped the letter because we have nothing to protect. That's our own read. It's built from public facts about each state's market. Not a quote from anyone in these offices.

But look at the map. It lines up too well to be nothing. States sign onto a fight when they have something worth fighting for. Most of the states that stayed home don't have that thing yet. Or they already gave it to one operator, locked up tight, for decades.

Where we could be wrong

Five states is a small sample, and state politics runs on more than market structure. Any of these five AGs could have skipped the letter for a reason that has nothing to do with sports betting. A scheduling conflict. A general disagreement with the CFTC on something else entirely. A relationship with the agency on an unrelated matter. We're reading a pattern from the outside. Nobody on the inside has confirmed it.

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