The free rider had a specific name
For roughly eighteen months, sports event contracts have been the fastest growing corner of American wagering, and the reason is not product design. It is cost structure. A bet placed at a state licensed sportsbook carries three layers of overhead: a state licence, a state gaming tax that reaches into the double digits and above fifty percent in New York, and an official data fee paid to the league whose game is being bet on. A sports event contract sold under a CFTC self certification carried none of those. The federal wrapper was not just a legal convenience, it was a permanent margin subsidy, and it let a handful of venues offer better pricing in fifty states at once, including states where sportsbooks are illegal outright.