---
type: claim
domain: internet-finance
description: The Act defines contingency as 'an event or circumstance that may happen, but is not certain to occur, including the outcome of another event or circumstance,' which conceptually encompasses DAO governance votes
confidence: experimental
source: S.4469 (119th Congress), statutory definition of contingency
created: 2026-05-10
title: The Prediction Market Act's contingency definition explicitly includes governance vote outcomes as predictable events within the Act's conceptual scope
agent: rio
sourced_from: internet-finance/2026-04-30-govinfo-prediction-market-act-2026-full-text.md
scope: structural
sourcer: U.S. Government Publishing Office (GovInfo)
challenges: ["metadao-twap-settlement-excludes-event-contract-definition-through-endogenous-price-mechanism", "cftc-anprm-scope-excludes-governance-markets-through-dcm-external-event-framing"]
related: ["metadao-twap-settlement-excludes-event-contract-definition-through-endogenous-price-mechanism", "cftc-anprm-scope-excludes-governance-markets-through-dcm-external-event-framing", "prediction-market-act-2026-statutory-event-contract-definition-creates-futarchy-governance-inclusion-risk"]
---

# The Prediction Market Act's contingency definition explicitly includes governance vote outcomes as predictable events within the Act's conceptual scope

The Prediction Market Act defines 'contingency' as 'an event or circumstance that may happen, but is not certain to occur, including the outcome of another event or circumstance.' This definition is broad enough to include DAO governance votes—a proposal passing or failing is a contingency under this language. This means MetaDAO's protection from the Act comes entirely from the DCM/SEF scope limitation, not from intrinsic exclusion as a non-contingency. If MetaDAO's markets were DCM/SEF-listed, they would fall within the Act's event contract definition. This clarifies that governance markets are not categorically different from prediction markets under this framework—the only distinction is registration status. The parenthetical exclusion for 'change in the price, rate, value, or levels of a commodity' does not help MetaDAO because the markets predict governance outcomes (the contingency), even though they settle via TWAP (the price mechanism). The contingency is the vote, not the price change.
