Casinos, Tribes, and Unions Urge Senate to Ban Sports activities Betting From the Readability Act

A coalition of greater than 50 gaming associations, tribal governments, and labor unions submitted a letter to the Senate on June 16, demanding that the Digital Asset Market Readability Act embody express language banning prediction markets from providing sports activities and casino-style occasion contracts. It is a direct shot at platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi which have constructed substantial real-money occasion contract companies beneath CFTC oversight.

Signatories embody the American Gaming Affiliation (AGA), the Indian Gaming Affiliation (IGA), and UNITE HERE, which represents 300,000 resort, gaming, and food-service employees throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The letter argues that prediction market platforms have engineered the most important enlargement of playing in U.S. historical past over the previous 18 months with out state authorization, legislative approval, or significant shopper protections.

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Coalition’s Core Argument: CFTC Was By no means Constructed to Police Playing

The coalition’s authorized framing is restricted and price unpacking. The teams aren’t merely arguing that sports activities betting is a foul coverage. In keeping with the coalition, the CFTC structurally lacks the authority and institutional infrastructure to control it. “Sports activities betting falls exterior the CFTC’s remit and can’t be provided by prediction market platforms,” the letter states.

The CFTC was established to supervise commodities and derivatives markets, to not police wagering integrity, underage entry, or problem-gambling safeguards – none of which it has enforcement historical past on.

AGA President Invoice Miller has beforehand said that gaming integrity frameworks are “being undermined by so-called ‘prediction markets’ who’re invading state, native, and tribal authorities.”

UNITE HERE’s president, Gwen Mills, framed it as an employment risk: employees’ livelihoods are “now threatened by prediction markets conducting unlawful sports activities betting in violation of Tribal sovereignty and state legal guidelines.”

The IGA’s concern runs deeper nonetheless, that the Readability Act, with out express carve-outs, may functionally back-door legalize nationwide sports activities betting by routing it by CFTC-registered platforms, bypassing the tribal-state compact system that at the moment governs the place and the way wagering is obtainable.

The American Gaming Affiliation has additionally claimed states have misplaced roughly $1 billion in tax income to prediction markets because the begin of 2025, although prediction market operators dispute that determine.

Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado put the jurisdictional argument plainly: “The CFTC has actually no expertise in regulating sports activities betting. Even worse, CFTC has failed to make use of the authority it does have to guard sports activities bettors from insider buying and selling, market manipulation, predatory promoting, and monetary instability.”

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Readability Act Legislative Battlefield: Three Obstacles, 9 Days, One Threshold

The gaming coalition’s letter lands on a invoice already beneath structural pressure. The Digital Asset Market Readability Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15–9 on Might 18, a significant vote depend however one that doesn’t resolve the three distinct obstacles nonetheless blocking ground passage.

An unresolved ethics battle embedded within the invoice’s language, two competing committee texts that have to be merged, and a 60-vote cloture threshold that calls for bipartisan buy-in properly past what the committee vote demonstrated.

With simply 9 working days earlier than the July 4 recess, Senate drafters face a compressed timeline to resolve whether or not to fold the gaming coalition’s anti-sports-betting language immediately into the Readability Act textual content or depart it to the separate Schiff-Curtis invoice. S

Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis launched the Prediction Markets Are Playing Act (S.4160) in March 2026, which might amend the Commodity Alternate Act to explicitly bar CFTC-registered entities from itemizing contracts tied to any sporting occasion or athletic competitors, or providing casino-style merchandise like poker or blackjack. That invoice preserves state and tribal gaming jurisdiction because the governing framework, precisely what the IGA and AGA need codified.

The rapid regulatory set off for this lobbying push was the CFTC’s early June 2026 rulemaking, which superior a framework formally allowing sure sports activities occasion contracts on prediction markets. Banning markets on accidents, officiating calls, high-school athletics, and pure-chance video games, however leaving skill-influenced occasion contracts probably open.

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