CFTC v. Jared J. Davis (rigged binary options execution, 2019)

Settled

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In September 2019 the CFTC sued Jared Davis, alleging he ran a binary options business that took at least $10 million from customers under brand names such as Option Mint and Option King. On 27 April 2023 an Ohio federal court entered a consent order requiring $561,971 in restitution and imposing permanent registration and trading bans. A parallel criminal case is referenced in the original release.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced this matter on September 17, 2019 as release 8018-19, bringing a civil case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against Jared J. Davis over a binary-options operation he is alleged to have built and run for roughly four years spanning 2012 to 2016. Marketed online and through call centers under the brand names Option Mint, Option King and Option Queen, the operation is alleged to have taken in a minimum of $10 million from customers based in the U.S. and abroad, sold as off-exchange bets on commodity and currency prices.

This library tags the matter as rigged binary options execution, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Two specific omissions drive that tag. First, the complaint alleges Davis never told customers he stood on the other side of every position, meaning their loss was his gain by design. Second — the allegation that matters most for this technique — the complaint alleges the platforms' own software settings were repeatedly adjusted at Davis's direction specifically to raise the chance a customer would lose. Put together, what the complaint describes is not a mispriced product but an outcome the house wrote for itself: a book entry rather than a wager settled against any real market.

Alongside the CFTC's case, the release notes a 22-count federal indictment against Davis in the same Ohio district and a separate SEC civil action.

Outcome. The CFTC's April 2023 release says the Northern District of Ohio entered a consent order on 27 April 2023. It requires Davis to pay $561,971 in restitution, permanently enjoins further violations as charged, and imposes permanent registration and trading bans; no civil penalty is stated. The order's findings, as the release reports them, are that Davis took about $10 million from customers between 2012 and 2016 and had trading platforms adjust settings. Because the order was entered by consent, it is a settlement; the allegations above are the CFTC's claims. The release does not state the result of the parallel criminal case, so no sentence is recorded.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Rigged binary options execution — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2019-09-17 CFTC civil enforcement action filed
2. 2023-04-27 Consent order entered: $561,971 restitution, permanent registration and trading bans

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• CFTC release 8018-19
• CFTC press release 8698-23 (consent order)

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 29, 2026. submit a correction.