It should be acknowledged from the outset that prediction markets are not new. For thousands of years, humans have made predictions, backed by their personal wealth, about future events that ran counter to conventional thinking and the visions of their peers. In the U.S., political markets from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s often picked presidential winners, outperforming political polls. Mix in some messy court cases and legitimate concerns about organized crime, and these practices generally died off domestically for a time. Recent developments, including the rise of modern tech platforms and applications, have expanded consumers’ access to “forecasting markets” and reignited interest in them, with some expecting the total value to reach $1 trillion annually within a few years.

Prediction markets have sparked a familiar state-federal turf war, despite the absence of any major scandal or market failure. Some states want to label the activities as gambling, an area generally policed by state law. That keeps open a lucrative tax stream, shields entrenched industries, and gives states a ready-made excuse to block these platforms outright.

The federal government rightfully sees it differently. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) argue that prediction markets are event contracts or securities and therefore belong under federal law. President Trump has now joined that fight, backing the CFTC’s court challenges to state interference and signaling support for a single national framework that would let the United States compete in a fast-growing global marketplace.

Substantively, calling prediction markets gambling is beyond a stretch, even when sports are involved. If that logic holds, much of the U.S. economy belongs in the same bucket: financial hedging, real estate speculation, debt financing, insurance, hog and oil futures, currency trading, and more. Policy should not cry “gambling” simply because people risk money on a well-informed view of an uncertain future.

More broadly, whether a given modern activity is gambling or creating a future may seem like hair-splitting. The demarcation between the two activities stems from a past society’s desire to ban gambling and promote a regulated futures industry. But Americans’ views toward gambling have changed substantially as casinos, lotteries, poker tournaments, sports betting and similar activities, both in physical facilities and online, have exploded in popularity and use throughout the nation.

The more appropriate debate and thus perspective is that current prediction markets are interstate or global. The vast majority of users are outside the borders of New York City (Kalshi, Gemini), Panama (Polymarket), or another platform’s home base. That gives the federal government an extensive role under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause to preempt state jurisdictional claims and explicitly assign jurisdiction to a federal agency or the court system for implementation and oversight. In fact, the CFTC has argued quite convincingly in court that Congress has previously done so in numerous instances for event contracts (or “swaps,” as the agency refers to them). That is, it has already been decided.

Even in the case of gambling, the courts have upheld Congress’s broad authority to restrict individuals’ participation and to usurp state involvement. This should give the Trump Administration wide latitude to push the preemption button on many fronts for the sector, including advocating before Congress and continuing the court battles.

The larger lesson is hard to miss: state-by-state tech regulation has been a mess. Instead of protecting consumers, it has fractured markets, piled on conflicting mandates, and raised the cost of serving Americans across state lines. Those burdens act as barriers to entry, narrowing where companies can operate and leaving other markets behind. Commercial privacy law is just one cautionary tale—an overlapping patchwork of state rules that has burdened interstate commerce and delivered little in return.

The words in Ecclesiastes had it right: we have seen this before. Experience from past state fights over tech policy should make it simple—prediction markets should not be carved up by fifty regulators. If rules are needed, they should be designed from a national perspective with a recognition of interstate commerce.

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NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt repeatedly argued that broadcast is the best place for consumers to watch their favorite games. Nobody mentioned that retransmission consent fees are essentially the hidden subsidy that makes billion-dollar sports rights deals possible. The money NBC is paying for the NBA isn’t coming from Peacock subscribers—it’s coming from your cable bill. In other words, sports media rights are still a mess.

The point of Wednesday’s hearing was to dig into the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which grants professional sports leagues a narrow antitrust exemption for broadcast rights, allowing them to pool individual team rights and negotiate collectively. More specifically, it was about the NFL and how it’s cutting deals with streamers such as Netflix and Amazon, while benefiting from the exemption.

NAB doesn’t want the NFL to lose that exemption. It just wants Congress to clarify that it applies to broadcast. But the league has been dabbling in other revenue streams, and taking away the ability to pool rights may create more headaches.

“I think the question Congress needs to ask itself is if the NFL cannot collectively sell streaming rights, how would Amazon acquire football? And then the corollary is something like, if Dallas decides they don’t want to participate, what happens to that package? It doesn’t exist, right?” Patrick Crakes, a former Fox exec who runs sports and media consultancy Crakes Media, told CFX. “Congress shouldn’t eliminate collective rights. They need to clarify that the collective rights are OK. They may want to just condition those. Maybe a minimum number of games need to be on broadcast.”

If the league lost the ability to pool rights beyond broadcast, it would make streaming packages like Amazon’s Thursday Night Football legally incoherent—Amazon would have to negotiate with individual teams, and any team that opted out would kill the package.

Democrats tried to turn the hearing into a referendum on media consolidation waved through under this administration. They repeatedly pointed to the government’s sign-offs on Paramount–Skydance, Disney–Fubo and NFL Network and Nexstar–Tegna—as well as the pending Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger which they claim is sailing through a politicized review process.

“This law absolutely deserves a serious re-examination. It was written for a media landscape that no longer exists. American sports fans are paying more, getting less and navigating a fragmented streaming environment that the 1961 Congress could not possibly have anticipated,” said Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-NY). “But you cannot examine the Sports Broadcasting Act in a vacuum and that’s exactly what the majority is asking us to do today. The same administration that suddenly discovered a concern for NFL fans has over the past year waved through one of the most aggressive waves of media consolidation in history.”

The merger of CBS Sports and TNT Sports under one corporate roof would create a sports rights portfolio only rivaled by ESPN, said Nadler, declaring that fewer competitors bidding for sports rights means higher bills for consumers even if they aren’t sports fans.

Republican members never took the consolidation bait, sticking instead to how difficult and expensive it is for sports fans to watch their teams. (Maybe the two sides can hammer out their differences tonight at Nationals Stadium for the annual GOP vs. Democrats Congressional Baseball Game).

“We’re here today to deal with the fundamental question: does this still work for consumers? Maybe it does… We know it’s working for the NFL,” said Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH), citing how in 1961 the NFL’s 14 teams received $3.37 million a team in the TV deal (adjusted for inflation) vs. $443 million for each of the 32 teams in the 2025 media deal.

NFL Sunday Ticket was frequently brought up, with Chairman Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) complaining that many fans can’t watch their favorite teams without the exclusive YouTube package. “When the beneficiaries of an exemption begin using it to restrict access, increase prices and strengthen their own market power beyond what Congress intended, lawmakers have an obligation to reconsider whether that exemption remains justified,” he said. “In my view, the NFL seems to have lost sight of the original purpose of the legislation and in fact they may even be in violation of the law right now.”

Speaking of Sunday Ticket, DirecTV got a nice bump by the committee including Texas bar and restaurant owner Jim Hallers as a witness. It’s been unsuccessful in brokering a deal with EverPass Media, the jv between the NFL and private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, to distribute the package to businesses. Absent a deal, bars and restaurants will have to adopt a streaming-only distribution model instead of DirecTV’s satellite platform. Hallers testified that he has to buy EverPass streaming boxes and add wiring, infrastructure and internet to support 30 to 40 streams. “For a full-blown sports bar, we’re looking at anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 of equipment upgrades, and we better get cracking soon because football season is coming,” he said.

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