US lawmakers to introduce bipartisan bill to prevent sports betting on prediction markets
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The news: US Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis will introduce a bipartisan Senate bill on Monday to prohibit entities regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), including prediction-market exchanges Kalshi and Polymarket’s US platform, from listing contracts related to sporting events.
The context: The bill’s co-sponsors told the Wall Street Journal the bill also aims to ban “casino-style games” including slot machine games, video poker, blackjack and bingo from the platforms.
Schiff told the WSJ that the CFTC is effectively “greenlighting” these prediction markets, even “promoting their growth” and that Congress must eliminate the “backdoor” into gambling which violates consumer protections.
Kalshi and Polymarket offer ‘yes-or-no’ wagers across a broad range of subject matters, but its trading activity also facilitates large volumes across professional and college sports, pitting them against betting sites like FanDuel and DraftKings.
“Banning sports on regulated prediction markets would just push this behaviour offshore, where no regulation exists,” said Elisabeth Diana, a Kalshi spokeswoman told the masthead. “It’s clear this bill is motivated by casino interests that are threatened by competition.”
US lawmakers have been struggling to agree on how events contracts on predictions platforms should be regulated and by whom, with the CFTC arguing that states have no regulatory control over prediction-market platforms.
The source: Wall Street Journal
