The CLARITY Act and prediction markets: what the bill says and what Polymarket prices

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 was introduced on 29 May 2025 by Rep. French Hill (R-AR). Its official title describes its aim: “to provide for a system of regulation of the offer and sale of digital commodities by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission” (Congress.gov, H.R. 3633).

In practice, it decides when a crypto token is a security for the SEC and when it is a “digital commodity” for the CFTC. It also sets registration rules for exchanges, brokers and dealers in those commodities, and creates exclusions for some decentralised-finance activity. The House version adds a title barring a US central bank digital currency (House-passed text).

Sources: House roll call 199 and the official bill status record. No later action is recorded as of 9 November 2026. The Senate Agriculture Committee, which covers the CFTC side, has its own bill, the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act (S. 4064), also waiting on the Senate calendar. Part of the Senate Banking version carries the short title “Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2026” (Senate text).

No. We searched the full text of all five versions of H.R. 3633, and the Senate Agriculture bills, for “event contract”, “prediction”, “sport” and “wager”. None of those terms appears in the sense that matters. The bill does amend section 5c of the Commodity Exchange Act, the section that holds the CFTC’s special rule for event contracts. But it adds a new rule for contracts “based on or references a digital commodity” and leaves the event-contract rule untouched.

The House version goes further and says the act shall not “affect or apply to” futures, options and swaps already covered by the Commodity Exchange Act. Kalshi’s and Polymarket US’s contracts are traded under those existing rules. The fight over whether states can regulate sports contracts is happening in the courts and at the CFTC, which in October 2026 proposed defining event contracts as swaps. Follow it in our regulation tracker.

The bill matters to crypto-based venues only indirectly. It treats stablecoins and token classification, and it excludes some DeFi software from CFTC registration. It never names a prediction market.

Several bills in this Congress aim at event contracts directly. As of 9 November 2026, none had moved beyond referral to committee:

• Event Contract Enforcement Act (H.R. 7840, Rep. Blake Moore, R-UT): would ban event contracts on gaming, including sports, unless a state expressly permits them, and on elections and government actions.
• Fair Markets and Sports Integrity Act (H.R. 7477, Rep. Dina Titus, D-NV): would ban sports and casino-style event contracts on CFTC-regulated exchanges.
• Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act (S. 4160, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-CA, with Sens. Curtis and Cortez Masto): would ban sports and casino-style contracts and say federal law does not preempt state law.
• STOP Corrupt Bets Act (H.R. 8123 and S. 4226): would ban contracts on elections, government actions, sports and military action.

Polymarket’s main market asks: “Clarity Act (H.R.3633) signed into law in 2026?” It resolves Yes if the bill “is passed by both chambers … and signed into law by December 31, 2026, 11:59 PM ET”, with Congress.gov as the resolution source. On 9 November 2026 the best bid was 2.3¢ and the best ask 2.4¢, about a 2% implied chance, on roughly $25 million of total volume.

Related Polymarket markets ask whether any crypto market-structure law passes in 2026, and how many senators will vote for the bill. Earlier markets on Senate passage by dates in September and October resolved No. Kalshi also lists markets on the bill, but its data terms do not allow us to show its prices. Prices move; check the market itself before relying on any figure here. How Polymarket works and what it charges: Polymarket review.