Reuters poll finds most Americans oppose election prediction markets

A Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday found that 69% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans oppose using prediction markets to bet on U.S. election results, a cross-partisan majority that arrives as Congress and the CFTC are actively debating how to regulate platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.

The poll is the first major public opinion survey to quantify resistance to election and government-event contracts specifically. Opposition spans party lines, which complicates the industry's standard argument that prediction markets are a neutral forecasting tool rather than a form of gambling.

Kalshi and Polymarket have both argued that their markets improve on traditional polling and allow hedging against real-world outcomes. The Reuters/Ipsos numbers do not address forecast accuracy, but they do address legitimacy — a different variable, and one that regulators weigh separately from technical performance.

The survey lands while the Supreme Court has the CFTC's jurisdictional claim before it and while 51 state attorneys general have already aligned against the agency's swap classification. Public opposition at these levels gives state-level regulators additional political cover to press their own authority claims over event contracts.