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The 2024 US presidential election is drawing near as millions of Americans get ready to cast their votes. One financial brokerage is seeking to offer a betting market for the upcoming elections. Interactive Brokers is looking to allow users to place wages on the election outcomes, but legal hurdles remain a pain point for this betting avenue. Here with more is Interactive Brokers founder and chairman Thomas Peterffy. Thomas, it is great to see you. So you want to create a market, Thomas, where investors can can bet on the presidential election. It does sound like this got kind of messy quickly, Thomas. Uh, headed to court. Can you just fill us in quickly here and what is the current legal status, Thomas of all this?

Okay, so the CFTC, um, was, um, trying to, uh, say that election betting or election, uh, wagering is is illegal. Um,

the judge came out to say that this is not gambling. The uh, CFTC appealed for a stay. The judge, uh, declined the stay. The CFTC appealed to the appeals court, and the appeals court is going to make its decision on this Thursday. Uh, they will either, uh, decline as this is an administrative stay currently. They will either decline the stay or they will go ahead with the stay. If they go ahead with the stay, it's it's unlikely that, uh, these contracts will be traded before the elections. But the likelihood is that they will, uh, refuse the stay.

Okay, so we'll we'll get the update hopefully later this week whether or not this can move forward. How would election betting impact a company like yours?

Well, from our point of view, the election betting is important because it would bring people to the platform. The platform's purpose is really to, uh, list contracts on forecasting, uh, economic and climate indicators because that is going to be the uh the long-term long-term, uh, essence of this platform. Forecast forecasting economic indicators, which come out all the time as you know. And, and these, these indicators and where do what level they resolve is a continuous, uh, topic of your platform. So, uh, people being able to take positions, uh, a yes or no of a certain economic indicators exceeding certain levels is, is uh, very important. And uh, similarly, uh, climate change is, uh, I think is a very important, uh, subject. And, uh, it is a what we have currently is people are either deniers of climate change or they are enthusiastic about it. And this is a ridiculous, uh, way of going about this existential issue. I think we should come together, and this platform will enable us to create a consensus opinion by which we will be able to gauge what people really think on the average and how urgent these problems are.

Thomas, you're Interactive Brokers is the only one moving into this area. You know, uh, creating a market where where investors can bet on presidential elections. You know, there are others, you'd have you'd have competition. What would be your competitive advantage do you think, Thomas?

Our competitive advantage would be that we have already over 3 million customers on the platform and, uh, our as I said, our aim So there are two basically competitive advantages. One is that we're listing long-term contracts. So, first 10 years out on the on the climate and on national debt and these existential questions. The second advantage is that our contracts pay interest half percent under the Fed fund rate on the closing value of the contract each and every day. So, while you may not want to, uh, buy a a contract, a forecast contract on something that will not resolve for 10 years, you will if you realize that as long as the contract moves in your favor, you get this daily interest on an ever higher value. So it it uh, is possible that you you say, you may say that, uh, the national debt will exceed such and such number in 10 years, and you buy that contract for say 20 or 25 cents with the payoff of a dollar in mind. But as the contract moves in your favor to 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 over time, you get daily interest on that closing value each day. So, the it it such a contract could resolve, uh, three and three dollars and change in your favor on a on a 20 or to 30 cents investment.

Well, Thomas, we'll be waiting to see if this offering can make it through the US legal system. Thomas Peterffy, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.