Chicken Road

About Chicken Road

In one of his Instagram stories, speaking directly to the camera, Pedro (a fictitious name for a “professional gambler”) shares a “unique opportunity”. He says that he is going to release a “super promotion for a premium group, which has higher odds”.

The normal price for access to the Telegram group would be BRL397 ($77.18) per month. But, exclusively on that day, he would release both groups together for “only BRL14.91 per month on the annual plan”. This group is the main product sold by Pedro, where he publishes sports predictions, tips on betting operators and higher-value betting odds.

The problem is that many of these recommendations involve companies that are not authorised to operate in Brazil. Some may be licensed in other countries, but that doesn’t allow them to operate legally in the Brazilian market.

What is Chicken Road?

“We expect new products such as KPI markets, which allow users to trade a single corporate metric, such as production, deliveries, or subscriber growth, rather than the stock price itself,” observe the analysts. “Further, perp futures are expanding from crypto to commodities and single stock perps.”

Some exchange operators already filed plans to introduce KPI-linked event contracts. Those derivatives would be tied to metrics such as corporate earnings or, in more nuanced cases, Apple iPhone shipments or Tesla deliveries — just two examples — in a given quarter.

While sports event contracts remain the headline-grabbers for prediction market operators, there’s evidence that other categories are experiencing growth. As Bernstein points out, cryptocurrency event contracts account for at least 20% of the turnover on the two largest prediction markets.

About Chicken Road

On Wednesday, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced that her office had filed a petition for writ of certiorari following an appeals court verdict from earlier this year that went in favour of prediction markets. That 2-1 verdict from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals was handed down in April, and New Jersey had until Thursday to petition the high court.

The petition poses the question of whether the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which was enacted in 2010 in the aftermath of the Great Recession, “preempted states from regulating sports bets that occur within their jurisdictions if those bets are offered on markets registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission”. Prediction markets have argued that their event contracts are financial derivatives regulated by the CFTC whereas many states contend that they are simply sports bets by another name.

There is no guarantee the Supreme Court will hear the case but a separate appeals court ruling from 28 August bolsters its chances. In that case, a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit ruled unanimously in favour of the state of Nevada, creating a circuit court split, which is a hallmark of many Supreme Court cases.