A bipartisan bill has been introduced in the US Senate to ban sports betting on prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket. This move is significant as it aims to regulate the rapidly growing sports betting industry, which has seen a substantial increase in total sports wagers from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $121.1 billion in 2023. The bill's sponsors, Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis, argue that sports prediction contracts are essentially sports bets, and their current regulation under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is inadequate.
Kalshi's Super Bowl trading volume reached over $1 billion this year, a 2700% increase year-over-year, highlighting the growing popularity of prediction markets. The senators' concerns about gambling addiction are also valid, as researchers have found that online sportsbooks have led to a 61% increase in searches for help with gambling addiction. The proposed bill aims to address these issues by bringing sports betting under state control, rather than federal regulators.
Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket operate under federal jurisdiction, which is why the senators are able to address them through this bill. However, the bill does not apply to FanDuel and DraftKings, which are subject to state-by-state gambling laws.
The proposed ban on sports betting on Kalshi and Polymarket highlights the growing concern about the impact of sports betting on young people and society as a whole. In Nigeria, companies like Bet9ja and 1xBet have been offering sports betting services, and the government has been grappling with the issue of regulating the industry. While there is no direct connection to the proposed US bill, it serves as a reminder of the need for responsible regulation of the sports betting industry in Nigeria and other African countries.
