Despite a federal ban on online gambling on election results, the CFTC’s no action letter had granted PredictIt an effective licence to operate subject to certain conditions due to PredictIt’s status as a not-for-profit project ran by the Victoria University of Wellington, a New Zealand-based research institution. As a result, it was effectively the only regulated political betting site in the US, as well as the only cross-state betting exchange regulated in the US as others would be banned by the Wire Act.