Betting

Federal Bill Would Force Sports Betting Off Prediction Markets

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Nevada’s two House members, one from each party, want to end the fight over prediction markets by writing the answer directly into federal law. Reps. Steven Horsford (D) and Mark Amodei (R) introduced the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act on Thursday, July 23, 2026, a bill that would bar federally regulated trading platforms from offering sports and casino-style event contracts, the products that have let Kalshi and Polymarket run what state regulators call unlicensed sportsbooks nationwide.

What the bill would do

The measure would amend the Commodity Exchange Act, the federal law that governs derivatives and futures trading, so that no platform registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) could list, clear, or trade any contract tied to a sporting event, an athletic competition, or a casino-style game. The bill defines that last category broadly, sweeping in slot machines, video poker, blackjack, roulette, craps, bingo, lottery, and any simulation of them.

Two features matter as much as the ban itself. It carves out legitimate hedging, so weather contracts, economic-data contracts, and similar instruments would stay under CFTC oversight; backers argue that a wager on the Super Bowl does not become a financial product simply because a trading app is selling it. And it adds an explicit rule of construction stating that nothing in federal law preempts state or tribal authority over gaming, leaving states and tribes free to set and enforce their own policies.

That second point is the crux. The House measure is the companion to a Senate version introduced in March 2026 by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), with Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto (D) signing on as a co-sponsor. Amodei said the legislation “closes a federal loophole that allows sports betting to masquerade as financial trading,” and argued that gaming policy has traditionally belonged to states and tribes rather than federal regulators.

The jurisdictional fight it targets

The underlying dispute is easy to state and hard to resolve. The CFTC treats event contracts as financial derivatives within its exclusive federal jurisdiction; a growing list of states counters that sports contracts are wagers that require a state gaming license. Courts have divided on the question, and the American Gaming Association estimates the standoff has already cost states and tribes more than $1 billion in gaming taxes, money the sponsors say would otherwise fund schools and roads. The trade group’s chief executive, Bill Miller, has told senators the products amount to backdoor sports betting, and that sports now make up roughly 86% of Kalshi’s trading volume, up from almost nothing two years ago.

Kalshi rejects that framing. Spokesperson Elisabeth Diana dismissed the tax-loss figure as “fake math from casinos, who are worried about losing their monopoly power,” noting the record $78.7 billion the US gaming industry took in last year.

Nowhere are the stakes sharper than in the sponsors’ home state. Nevada’s Gaming Control Board took one of the country’s hardest lines early, warning operators that offering prediction markets would put their state licenses at risk. That stance pushed FanDuel to surrender its Nevada license and DraftKings (DKNG ) to withdraw a dormant application, and it has kept Las Vegas operators such as Caesars and MGM out of the business even as their sportsbooks compete with the same contracts in other states.

The bill would also settle a clash already unfolding one state at a time. Michigan ordered Kalshi to geofence its sports bettors or face daily fines, and the CFTC then moved to shield the platform from part of that order, a direct example of the federal-versus-state collision the legislation aims to resolve. Abroad, some regulators have gone further, with the Czech Republic blocking Polymarket outright as unlicensed gambling.

Why it matters

Organized labor has lined up behind the bill and cast it as a jobs fight. UNITE HERE President Gwen Mills said prediction markets threaten the livelihoods of more than 100,000 union members in tribal and commercial casinos, while Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge put the Nevada figure at 60,000 workers employed at resorts on and around the Las Vegas Strip and in Reno.

Passage is far from assured. The bill is one of several prediction-market measures moving through Congress, and the current administration and its CFTC have been broadly friendly to the platforms, ending federal probes and moving to formalize their oversight rather than curb it. Industry leaders have long expected the jurisdictional question to be settled by the Supreme Court, which is widely expected to take up a prediction-markets case. For now, the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act is less an imminent ban than a statement of intent: a bipartisan, bicameral signal that, whatever the CFTC decides, Congress still considers a sports bet a sports bet.

Elena Markov is an AI-generated analyst at Gaming.net, tracking regulatory developments, licensing decisions, and enforcement actions in major gambling jurisdictions worldwide. Her reporting centers on specific policy changes, fines, auditor findings, and legal interpretations affecting licensed operators.

Elena’s articles parse regulatory documents and enforcement notices from bodies such as the UK Gambling Commission, Malta Gaming Authority, and state regulators, explaining how these moves influence market access, operator obligations, and compliance costs. She foregrounds named regulators, actual rulings, timelines, and documented outcomes.
Articles authored by Elena Markov are AI-generated and reviewed by Gaming.net’s editorial team to ensure accuracy, clarity, and compliance-aware coverage of gambling regulation.