Bipartisan House Bill Would Ban Sports Prediction Markets

A bipartisan pair of Nevada lawmakers has introduced federal legislation aimed squarely at the fastest-growing threat to tribal gaming exclusivity: sports-style event contracts offered on prediction market platforms. Representatives Steven Horsford (D-NV) and Mark Amodei (R-NV) unveiled the "Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act," a bill that would draw a bright line between legitimate financial markets and what its sponsors describe as casino-style wagering dressed up as commodities trading.

The measure lands at a moment when tribal governments, state regulators, and commercial operators alike are scrambling to respond to platforms that allow customers to trade contracts tied to the outcome of sporting events. Because those platforms are regulated as financial exchanges by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than as sportsbooks, they have so far operated outside the compacts, licensing regimes, and tax obligations that govern legal gaming.

What the bill would do

At its core, the legislation makes explicit that the CFTC oversees legitimate financial markets — not sportsbook-style gambling or casino games. It seeks to close what its sponsors call a federal loophole that has let companies bypass the licensing requirements, consumer protections, tax obligations, and regulatory oversight that apply to established gaming operators.

Crucially for Indian Country, the bill would affirm that states and tribes retain ultimate authority to regulate gaming within their jurisdictions and could choose to impose stricter limits. Its sponsors have been careful to distinguish sports contracts from genuine commercial hedging; the measure is not intended to affect contracts that let businesses hedge against real economic risks, such as a small business protecting itself against bad weather. The stated goals are to protect consumers, safeguard state tax revenue, defend tribal sovereignty, and preserve casino jobs.

The House bill follows companion legislation introduced in the Senate in March 2026 by Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA), John Curtis (R-UT), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), giving the effort a foothold in both chambers and across party lines.

The framing is deliberate. Rather than attacking prediction markets wholesale, the sponsors have drawn a distinction between financial contracts that serve a genuine risk-management function and contracts whose only real purpose is to let a customer wager on the outcome of a game. By keeping legitimate hedging untouched, the bill aims to blunt the argument that a ban would damage lawful commodities trading — and to keep the debate focused narrowly on sports and casino-style contracts, where the overlap with regulated gaming is most direct.

Why tribes are watching closely

For tribal operators, the stakes are existential. Exclusivity — the promise, embedded in many tribal-state compacts, that tribes are the sole authorized providers of certain forms of gaming — is the foundation of the economic model that funds tribal governments. Prediction markets that offer sports wagering nationwide, including on or near tribal lands, threaten to erode that exclusivity without any of the revenue-sharing or regulatory commitments tribes negotiated for. The tension is explored in depth in our analysis of how prediction markets collide with IGRA exclusivity.

The legislative push runs parallel to an expanding wave of litigation. A federal judge in Wisconsin allowed the Ho-Chunk Nation's claims against Kalshi to proceed under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, and appellate courts are now weighing the broader question of whether these contracts constitute unauthorized Class III gaming on tribal lands. Congressional action would not moot those cases, but a statutory ban would give tribes a far cleaner remedy than case-by-case litigation.

The bill reframes a market-structure question as a jurisdictional one: who gets to decide what counts as gambling, and where.

The road ahead

Passage is far from assured. Prediction market platforms and their backers argue that event contracts are legitimate financial instruments with real hedging and price-discovery value, and the CFTC's posture toward the products has shifted with its leadership. Any bill that touches financial regulation must also navigate committees and constituencies well beyond the gaming world.

Still, the bipartisan, bicameral nature of the effort matters. When lawmakers from both parties in a state as gaming-dependent as Nevada align with a coalition that includes tribal governments, state regulators, and organized labor, the political case becomes harder to dismiss. Readers can review the underlying statutory framework in our legal guide to IGRA and Class III gaming, which explains why the classification of a wager — as gaming or as a financial product — carries such enormous consequences.

For now, the "Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act" functions as both a policy proposal and a statement of principle: that the definition of gambling should not hinge on which federal agency a company chooses to register with. Whether Congress acts this session or not, the bill crystallizes the argument tribes have been making for more than a year — that sovereignty over gaming cannot survive if a parallel, unregulated market is allowed to offer the same product without the same rules.