Thought Leadership
What I Would Have Said at Mount Rushmore
Trump Warned of Communism. I Would Have Made the Case for Capitalism.
WILLIAMS BAY, WI (JLN) ― July 6, 2026: Standing in the shadow of four presidents carved into granite, I would not have warned the crowd about communism, as President Donald Trump did. Not because communism isn’t a failed system ― it plainly is ― but because warning people about failure is easy. The harder, more honest, more American thing to do is to defend what we have, explain why it works, acknowledge where it doesn’t, and commit to fixing it. That is what I would have said.
Other Voices: Drew Mauck – For Whom The Bell Tolls
OTHER VOICES – For Whom The Bell Tolls
Tomorrow, the man representing the United States on the global stage as Commerce Secretary will sit under oath before the House Oversight Committee. It will be a moment of profound national embarrassment. On May 6, Howard Lutnick will not be answering questions about trade deficits or manufacturing; he will be forced to answer for his long-standing associations with Jeffrey Epstein.
Blurring the Line: How Online Gaming and Prediction Markets Are Fueling a New Generation of Gambling Addicts
As prediction markets expand and sportsbook-futures partnerships flourish, a troubling connection emerges—young adults are slipping from gaming into gambling, raising alarms for families and regulators amid America’s betting boom.
My son Robby, like many young adults who grew up in Chicago, is a Cubs fan. He likes to play video games. He has a Robinhood account and he decided to buy a contract for the Cubs to win the World Series. He did not know he was buying a Kalshi prediction market contract.
On Monday, Kalshi’s CEO Tarek Mansour said during the SEC-CFTC roundtable meeting that he wanted to push to launch 3000 new prediction market contracts in 2025. This comes amidst the largest expansion of legalized gambling in the history of the U.S.
Also, with the CME Group and Fanduel recently announcing a partnership to expose Fanduel’s 13 million customers to CME Group’s futures markets, I thought I would examine the dark side of this trend and how gaming addiction can lead to gambling addiction, including how to identify it and what to do about it.
Gambling, Murder and Mayhem: Welcome to the New Futures Markets of Today
Gambling, murder, and mayhem are now part of today’s CFTC-regulated financial futures markets. While mayhem has always been a feature of financial futures, you can now trade the outcome of the Super Bowl with “event contracts.” These contracts strip away any pretense and reveal themselves as straightforward bets on “The Big Game.” This isn’t trading—it’s gambling, wrapped in the guise of a financial instrument.
A week ago, Crypto.com unveiled a sports-focused version of its platform, enabling users to trade event contracts on “The Big Game.” A promotional video is pinned to the Crypto.com X/Twitter feed, and the new offering is prominently featured on the frontpage of its website.
As of Sunday night, Kalshi has paused its markets related to murder and on Monday morning the contracts had disappeared from the Kalshi site. Previously listed contracts included “Did Luigi Mangione or a family member have UnitedHealthCare insurance?,” “Will only Luigi Mangione be charged in connection with the killing of the UnitedHealthCare CEO?,” and “Will Luigi Mangione plead guilty to murder?.”
The rise of self-certified event contracts by non-traditional market participants — offering contracts serving no economic purpose beyond pure speculation — is eroding the trust and hard-earned reputation that futures markets have built in the modern trading era.
Crossroads of Innovation: Cathie Wood, Peter Zeihan, and Jamie Metzl Share Visionary Insights at Miami Summit
In a recent interview with John Lothian News, James Putra, vice president and head of product at TradeStation, discussed key insights from several prominent speakers at the recent “Crossroads Summit” focused on innovation and economic trends, including Investor Cathy Woods, Author Peter Zeihan and Jamie Metz, founder and chair of OneShared.World.
Cathie Wood’s presentation at the event provided a compelling look at how exponential technologies and their convergence could shape the future of industries and economies. TradeStation’s Putra highlighted one particularly thought-provoking insight regarding U.S. manufacturing. “Her perspective was interesting and not one that I’ve heard before,” Putra noted, explaining Wood’s analogy to how telecom and banking leapfrogged legacy infrastructure in developing nations. Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, suggested that the United States, having lost much of its traditional manufacturing infrastructure due to globalization, could now similarly leapfrog into advanced manufacturing driven by robotics, artificial intelligence, and big data capabilities. “She sees a real optimistic future in terms of manufacturing in the U.S.,” Putra added.
Client Clearing – The Direction of Travel
A recently proposed Futures Industry Association (FIA) European Trustee Model (EATM) to facilitate client clearing in European jurisdictions indicates the industry’s desire to improve clearing brokers’ profitability and facilitate access to clearing for derivatives end-users. At the same time, upcoming Basel 3.1 changes (also known as Basel IV) and, in the United States (US), Basel III ‘Endgame’ proposals, if implemented without amendments, will significantly increase costs of providing access to clearing for both European banks and US-based Globally Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) affiliated Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs).
Immigrants Are Risk Takers and I Like Risk Takers
Last week during the GOP convention in Milwaukee we heard a lot of bad things about immigrants. This is actually a very old story in American politics. A bill passed by the very first Congress of the United States, the Naturalization Act of 1790, limited naturalization to “free white person(s) … of good character,” explicitly excluding Native Americans, indentured servants, enslaved people, free Africans, and Asians from citizenship.
This bill was supported by the Federalist party, a party no longer around, and signed into law by President George Washington on March 26, 1790.
John Lothian Reflects on Physical Challenges and Biden’s Debate Performance
Williams Bay, WI (JLN) – Describing Joe Biden’s debate performance last week, New Yorker Editor David Remnick quoted Mark Twain, writing, “It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.”
I can identify with that quote. Some of my physical health issues are like those of President Biden, and last week the degradation of my physical abilities caused me to miss my connection between London and Chicago.
The health issues I share with President Biden include obstructive sleep apnea, gastroesophageal reflux, seasonal allergies, spinal arthritis and peripheral neuropathy in the feet.
Reviving Birmingham-Southern: Dan Coleman’s Journey to Save a Struggling College
Dan Coleman left KCG after it was acquired by Virtu Financial and moved back to Birmingham, Alabama to contemplate his future. He reached out to a local college, Birmingham-Southern, whose board he once served on. Little did he know he would soon end up as its president.
While waiting for the Virtu deal to close, Coleman called the college and asked what was going on there. This led to a conversation during which he was hired as a college professor teaching investments. He dove into the text book for the class and found it was the same one he had studied in 1993 when he was an undergraduate. Coleman sensed that some of his knowledge was out of date and decided to take a class in computer programming using Python, as well as one in mathematics. In the spring he took more Python and actuarial math, a subject he wishes he had studied earlier, he said.
FIA EXPO 2023 to Spotlight Artificial Intelligence
Walt Lukken, President & CEO of FIA (Futures Industry Association), revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) will take center stage at this year’s EXPO 2023 in an exclusive interview with John Lothian News. The Innovator’s Pavilion will showcase companies offering AI solutions aimed at enhancing market efficiency and functionality. Additionally, AI will be a prominent theme in panel discussions during the event.
Lukken highlighted the overwhelming interest in AI, stating that it was the most sought-after topic among queries sent to the EXPO steering committee before the event.
This year’s EXPO will commence on a Monday, a departure from previous years, with keynote speaker Jon Meacham addressing the audience. Meacham’s speech will delve into how history may assess the leadership qualities of today’s U.S. leaders, as Lukken explained.
Is the era of the traditional FCM model coming to an end?
No, at Abaxx Exchange we don’t believe the era of the traditional FCM model is coming to an end, nor should it be. However, the recent Risk.net article “Brokers slam CME over ‘conflict of interest’ in FCM plan’ made us realize that not everyone may feel the same way, and we need to make our case for the raditional FCM model.
Some exchange groups ranging from the largest that date back more than a century to the digital asset focused upstarts have asserted that risk mutualization processes — currently favored and handled by FCMs — can and should be disintermediated.
Book “Regtech, Suptech and Beyond” Looks at Technological Solutions for Regulatory Oversight
There is a new book out from Risk Books titled “Regtech, Suptech and Beyond.”
The book is a compendium of chapters addressing technology and innovation in regulatory and supervisory oversight in financial services. Different authors explore the emerging best practices in regulatory oversight and financial services that leverage technological solutions.
SEC Special Counsel Laura Harper Powell collaborated with the former President of ICE Trade Vault and current President and Founder of CoinReg Tech Bruce Tupper on a chapter in the book focusing on CFTC regtech implications for virtual currency trading.
Analysis: What Can We Learn From the DOJ’s Latest Spoofing Conviction?
“I know how to game this stuff.” “One can definitely manipulate if you’re aggressive.” “If you spoof this it really moves.” These excerpts from online chats among traders and hedge fund managers more than a decade ago played a key role in the Justice Department’s successful prosecution of two Wall Street traders in the latest trial to take on ”spoofing,” a form of market manipulation that was criminalized in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
The Complete 2021 MarketsWiki Education World of Opportunity Virtual Event & Additional Videos
The 2021 JLN MarketsWiki Education World of Opportunity was held on July 21 as a virtual event and featured an interview with Small Exchange CEO Donnie Roberts and an interview of and presentation from Get Real VR partner Ed Haravon.
To Start a Revolution, the Small Exchange Needs Revolutionaries
An Old Idea to Start a New Revolution In a recent JLN interview, Donnie Roberts, the CEO of the Small Exchange, said he “want(ed) people to join a bit of a revolution that we feel we have started.” If Roberts is going to succeed, he is going to have to put on his...
Old Downtown Chicago Trading Hub Becomes New AI Data Center
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff The former Cboe Global Markets trading headquarters at 400 S. LaSalle Street is undergoing a $300 million to $400 million conversion into a 33-megawatt AI data center by Legacy Investing and GI Partners, Natalie...
We visit more than 100 financial news websites daily (Would YOU do that?)
The Spread
Introducing “Auditions” – A JLN Topic Page for Market-Related Entertainment Content Creators
John Lothian News announces the upcoming launch of “Auditions,” a new space on johnlothiannews.com and the John Lothian Newsletter for entertainment content creators to introduce to the JLN audience their market related TV scripts, movie scripts, documentaries, short stories, books and poems. The official launch date is not set, but is coming soon.
Mogator Media Capital (Mogator Media Capital), along with writers Daniel F. Sullivan (Pencils with Erasers Podcast) and John Nuckel (JohnNuckel.com), are presenting the first audition, a script for a feature film titled “The Front Runner.” Based on a true story from the Chicago Board of Trade, the film chronicles a man’s attempt in 1992 to corner the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond futures market, albeit for a brief 15 minutes.
Hyperliquid Won Perpetuals. After $536 Million of Options Traded in September, Can It Win Options Too?
OBSERVATIONS Gensler to Supreme Court: “I Was There,” and Dodd-Frank Didn’t Make the CFTC a Sports Book WILLIAMS BAY, WI (JLN) — October 9, 2026: Gary Gensler was often a burr under the futures industry’s saddle while he ran the CFTC. Now he is TradFi’s best friend,...