Market makers exempt as Crypto.com slows retail wagers in live sports betting
If your sports bets on Crypto.com feel late, they are. According to a disclosure, the exchange now places a three‑second delay on every sports wager from regular users, while professional market makers trade with no pause.
Crypto.com is one of the first US‑regulated exchanges to offer contracts tied directly to game results.
The pause affects people placing real‑time bets on scores and final outcomes. Market makers stay exempt. The change was cleared through a filing sent to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on July 30 and placed inside the platform’s public FAQs.
The delay does not hit market makers, who are often full‑time professional trading firms. That lets them change prices before fast moves from other customers land on the book.
The risk is highest for people sitting inside stadiums who see goals, fouls, and injuries before anyone watching on TV.
A spokesperson for Crypto.com allegedly said the change “supports liquidity and fairness.” The spokesperson added, “This is a disclosed rule in our FAQs.”
The exchange said the rule is designed to handle sharp price changes during live games, where betting traffic and losses can stack up within seconds.
Kalshi files for order delays
Crypto.com is not the only platform moving in this direction. Kalshi Inc., another major prediction market exchange, has submitted its own paperwork to regulators that would allow it to delay certain orders moving through its system.
The proposal now sits inside a ten‑business‑day review window at the CFTC. The filing does not spell out which customers would face the slowdown or whether some users would be exempt. If the regulator raises no issues during the review, the delay could take effect as soon as this week.
The push for delays arrives as prediction markets expand fast, driven in large part by heavy trading around sports games. These venues want deeper liquidity and tighter pricing, and that depends on attracting large market‑making firms.
Delays reduce risk for those firms when prices move in bursts. Similar policies in equities and derivatives trading have drawn pushback in the past. Critics said rules favoring high‑speed firms weakened claims of equal access.
If prediction markets follow that same playbook, their argument of a level playing field against traditional sportsbooks faces new pressure.
Delays target courtsiders
Three seconds look small on paper. In live betting, it can decide everything. One score or one injury can swing prices before most screens refresh.
Alfonso Straffon, a consultant who previously worked as a sports trader and gaming research analyst at Deutsche Bank AG, tied the new delay to courtsiding.
The practice involves betting from inside a venue before sportsbooks and exchanges update odds for the wider market. Alfonso said, “This three‑second delay really protects market makers from courtsiders or even individuals that correctly anticipate a sudden, market‑wide move in the odds.”
The delay on Crypto.com applies to all non‑market‑making customers, not only those trying to exploit courtsiding. That structure favors large liquidity firms trading at scale.
Susquehanna International Group and Jump Trading both actively operate on Kalshi. Kalshi also runs an internal market‑making unit on its own exchange.
That unit now faces a proposed class action lawsuit from retail traders who accuse the company of making money by betting against its own users.
Kalshi co‑founder Luana Lopes Lara said in a recent social media post that the trading arm is walled off under separate management and receives “no preferential treatment” on the platform.
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