DraftKings reported weaker second-quarter revenue even as more customers placed bets and used its platform. Favorable sports results for bettors and heavier promotional spending to attract new users reduced the online gambling company’s revenue and profitability during the quarter.

The Boston-based operator posted revenue of $1.44 billion for the three months ended June 30, down 5% from $1.51 billion a year earlier. The company said bettor-friendly outcomes and increased promotional reinvestment tied to customer acquisition across its Sportsbook and Predictions products were the main reasons for the decline.

Customer activity, however, continued moving higher. Sports Consumer Volume, which measures settled wagers and trades across Sportsbook and Prediction Markets, climbed 15% year over year to $13.1 billion from $11.5 billion. Monthly Unique Payers rose about 9% to 3.6 million, although average revenue per monthly payer dropped 13% to $132 because promotions and favorable betting outcomes reduced revenue generated from each customer.

DraftKings doubles down on Predictions as second-quarter results show decline

DraftKings also swung to a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $67.6 million after reporting net income of $157.9 million in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA declined to $114.6 million from $300.6 million a year earlier.

Across its business lines, sports revenue fell 10.6% to $891.9 million, while iGaming revenue increased 7.5% to $461.9 million. Other revenue rose 5.2% to $89.4 million, and the sports net revenue margin narrowed to 6.8% from 8.7%.

“We delivered a strong second quarter and enter the back half of the year with real momentum, as our core business grew across handle, users, and engagement,” said Jason Robins, DraftKings’ Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder. “Our Super App is now live nationwide, and Predictions is already growing faster than we anticipated. The similarity of Predictions customer metrics to Sportsbook customer metrics, our advantaged LTV position, and our playbook to innovate on a leading Predictions offering all underpin our confidence that we can win the category this NFL season and beyond.”

The emphasis on Predictions has grown steadily this year. In first-quarter results, DraftKings reported its first quarterly profit of 2026 and said stronger sportsbook margins were giving it room to invest in prediction markets while expanding its broader Super App strategy.

Chief Financial Officer Alan Ellingson said the company continues to expect its core business to generate about $1 billion in adjusted EBITDA this year, giving it flexibility to invest in its Predictions business.

“Our core business remains on track to generate approximately $1 billion of Adjusted EBITDA this year, providing us with financial flexibility to invest behind the significant opportunity that we are seeing in Predictions,” Ellingson said. “Therefore, we are maintaining our fiscal year 2026 guidance for revenue of $6.5 billion to $6.9 billion and Adjusted EBITDA of $700 million to $900 million.”

The company left its full-year guidance unchanged. It has also continued expanding its federally regulated prediction markets business through Railbird Exchange, which recently filed sports event contract certifications with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 

At the same time, the strategy faces legal scrutiny, with two proposed class-action lawsuits alleging the Predictions platform functions as an unlicensed sportsbook. DraftKings currently operates mobile sports betting in 27 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, while iGaming is available in five states and its Canadian business reaches provinces representing about 51% of the country’s population.

Featured image: DraftKings

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The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has fined Betty Gaming Ltd. C$120,000 after determining weaknesses in the company’s age-verification and player eligibility systems let underage users access its Betty.ca online gambling platform.

The regulator said Betty informed the AGCO in November 2025 after identifying a vulnerability affecting its age-restriction and eligibility controls. As a result, nine people younger than 19 successfully opened accounts, deposited money, and gambled on the site. Another 14 underage individuals created accounts but never deposited funds.

AGCO widens enforcement as compliance failures by Betty Gaming draw penalties

Ontario’s gaming rules require operators to have reliable safeguards that stop underage access and confirm player eligibility before any account is created. According to the AGCO, those protections are designed to keep young people away from gambling while reinforcing trust in the province’s regulated online gaming market.

The monetary penalties relate to alleged breaches of the Registrar’s Standards for Gaming. The standards prohibit operators from allowing underage individuals to create accounts, sign in, or gamble online. They also require companies to gather, complete, and validate relevant player information before an account is established.

The AGCO said every registered operator is responsible for making sure its technology works properly before it reaches customers. When those systems fail, the regulator said, young people can be exposed to gambling and confidence in Ontario’s regulated market can be weakened.

“The legal age requirement is one of the most basic and important safeguards in Ontario’s regulated gaming market. Young people must not be able to create accounts, deposit money, or gamble online. Registered operators are responsible for making sure their systems work before those systems go live. When those responsibilities are not met, we will take action to protect young people and uphold confidence in Ontario’s regulated market,” said Dr. Karin Schnarr, Chief Executive Officer and Registrar, AGCO.

Betty Gaming can challenge the Order of Monetary Penalty. Under Ontario’s process, operators have 15 days to appeal to the Licence Appeal Tribunal, an independent adjudicative body operating within Tribunals Ontario.

The enforcement action fits into a wider pattern of AGCO oversight during the past year. Earlier, the regulator revoked lottery seller registrations connected to unapproved Prime Slot gambling machines in the Greater Toronto Area and later carried out more than 200 inspections across bars, restaurants, and lottery retailers. Those efforts resulted in the removal of more than 50 machines that the AGCO said were operating illegally in locations accessible to minors and other vulnerable groups.

The regulator has also taken action against licensed operators over compliance issues, including a C$54,000 ($38,500) penalty issued to Well Played Media over a promotional offer the AGCO said encouraged high-risk gambling and failed to clearly disclose key terms.

In Ontario, most online gambling requires participants to be at least 19 years old, although online lottery ticket purchases are permitted from age 18. The AGCO oversees the province’s alcohol, cannabis, gaming, and horse racing sectors through a risk-based regulatory framework focused on compliance, integrity, and public safety.

Featured image: Betty Gaming via press release / AGCO via X

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Swish Analytics is dealing with a much wider legal challenge after two fresh lawsuits landed this week. One comes from OddsJam and OpticOdds as part of their ongoing courtroom fight over sports betting odds. The other was filed separately by fantasy sports publisher RotoWire, which claims the company improperly scraped and used its player news and injury information.

The cases add to litigation that began in December 2024, when Swish sued OddsJam and OpticOdds. In the original complaint, Swish accused both companies of copying and redistributing betting odds that it says are proprietary. The defendants rejected those accusations, and the dispute has continued in San Francisco Superior Court.

The latest filings introduce new legal theories and widen the issues before the courts. OddsJam and OpticOdds are now also accusing Swish of violating California antitrust law and engaging in other unlawful business practices. At the same time, RotoWire has launched its own separate action centered on the alleged scraping and commercial use of its sports information.

OddsJam and OpticOdds respond to Swish Analytics with antitrust allegations

OddsJam and OpticOdds said they have filed a cross-complaint accusing Swish Analytics of violating California’s Cartwright Act, trade libel, unfair competition, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, and breach of contract. Their filing argues that Swish’s business model reduces competition by supplying a common pricing algorithm to multiple sportsbooks.

According to the public version of the filing, the companies argue they are seeking “to put an end to Plaintiff and Cross-Defendant Swish Analytics, Inc.’s acts of unfair competition and algorithmic price fixing that have decreased competition in the market for online sports betting.” They contend that licensing the same pricing technology to competing operators encourages sportsbooks to post similar odds, limiting meaningful differences for customers.

The cross-complaint also says OddsJam and OpticOdds help consumers compare prices by collecting sportsbook odds through methods that include API partnerships. According to the filing, their business benefits when sportsbooks compete by offering different prices rather than moving toward the same numbers.

Gambling.com Group, which acquired OddsJam and OpticOdds in December, issued a statement alongside the filing. Co-founder Charles Gillespie strongly criticized Swish’s lawsuit.

“The inexplicable and breathlessly hypocritical lawsuit from Swish Analytics against OddsJam and OpticOdds may go down as the single biggest own-goal in the history of the online gambling industry.”

Gillespie added: “We never paid much attention to Swish, until they forced us to with their lawsuit. That has now led us to pursue claims against them for violating the Cartwright Act, California’s premier anti-trust law, from their base in San Francisco. The lawsuit that they filed against us now poses an existential threat to their own business.”

He later said on social media that he had tried to resolve the disagreement before it reached this stage.

“Worth noting that I started with diplomacy to resolve this case. I flew to San Fran to meet the Swish CEO and hear him out. I tabled a serious proposal to fully address their concerns and resolve the case. I was promised a serious answer and got nothing for nearly a year.”

The cross-complaint asks the court to halt what the companies describe as unlawful conduct and award damages for losses they say resulted from Swish’s actions.

RotoWire alleges unauthorized use of proprietary sports data

RotoWire separately announced that it had sued Swish Analytics, alleging the company unlawfully scraped and misappropriated proprietary sports information before using it in commercial products.

In a statement posted Wednesday, RotoWire said: “Last night, RotoWire filed a lawsuit against Swish Analytics for unlawfully scraping and misappropriating our data. RotoWire’s player injury data, in particular, is the lifeblood of player prop odds making.”

The publisher said it has spent decades building trusted sports data resources.

“For more than two decades, RotoWire has been one of the most trusted names in fantasy sports and sports data. Our projections, news and analytics are the product of millions of hours aggregating, verifying and producing the information the industry relies on every day.”

RotoWire also alleged: “For too long, some companies have ignored our requests to properly license the data we’ve worked hard to compile. Some of these companies, such as Swish Analytics, even publicly admit to using RotoWire data in their products.”

According to the complaint, Swish operates products that “depend on the automated and unauthorized collection of fantasy sports news and information created by RotoWire and others.” RotoWire is seeking damages along with court orders intended to stop the alleged conduct.

The complaint points to claims of automated web scraping and references public comments from Swish executives about collecting sports information from multiple online sources. It also cites a job advertisement seeking engineers with experience in “web scraping.”

RotoWire further alleges Swish acknowledged using RotoWire information without authorization and declined a licensing proposal in 2025, responding that “we do all this internally at Swish.”

According to the complaint, RotoWire argues those actions deprived it of licensing revenue while allowing Swish to “free ride” on years of investment in creating time-sensitive sports information.

The company said in its social media thread: “Our complaint alleges that Swish Analytics unlawfully scrapes and misappropriates RotoWire’s proprietary data to help inform its algorithms and products. Swish Analytics has been unfairly profiting from our hard work, and we have sued to stop them.”

RotoWire added: “We take the integrity of our data and our platform seriously, and we intend to protect it.”

Three lawsuits now surround Swish Analytics

Swish’s original lawsuit continues to allege that OddsJam and OpticOdds improperly obtained and redistributed proprietary betting odds through unauthorized scraping and API access. The defendants continue to deny the allegations while advancing their own claims against Swish.

Meanwhile, RotoWire’s lawsuit focuses on whether Swish unlawfully collected and commercialized fantasy sports news and player information without authorization. The publisher is asking the court for damages and injunctive relief based on those allegations.

The claims made in each of the three cases remain disputed, and none has been proven in court. Swish Analytics has previously said the allegations against it lack merit while continuing to defend its own lawsuit against OddsJam and OpticOdds. 

ReadWrite has reached out to Swish Analytics for comment.

Featured image: Swish Analytics via website

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Federal prosecutors say the founder of an NFT startup collected more than $10 million from investors by promising to build a digital collectibles marketplace, then diverted much of that money to gambling, cryptocurrency trading, luxury purchases and other personal expenses instead.

A federal grand jury in Manhattan returned an indictment charging Taj Tarsha, the founder and sole owner of Few and Far Limited, with securities fraud and wire fraud. Prosecutors contend the alleged misconduct stretched across several years and involved misleading investors about how company money was being used. Tarsha, 34, of Miami, was arrested on June 6, 2026, and the case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.

Prosecutors allege NFT startup founder used investor funds for gambling 

According to the indictment, Tarsha began seeking investments in February 2022 through Simple Agreements for Future Tokens, or SAFTs, which promised investors FAR tokens at a later date. Prosecutors say investors were told the proceeds would finance development of Few and Far’s decentralized NFT marketplace and its cryptocurrency token. They allege the offering brought in more than $10 million through sales of 95 million FAR tokens to at least 67 investors.

“As alleged, Taj Tarsha raised millions of dollars from investors by promising that their investments would be used to build a marketplace for non-fungible tokens, but he instead breached their trust by stealing those funds for his own personal benefit,” Deputy United States Attorney Sean S. Buckley said. “Investors are entitled to the truth when choosing to make an investment, and this Office and our law enforcement partners will hold business leaders responsible when they lie for their own gain.”

The indictment says Tarsha privately described the NFT market as a “bubble” while viewing it as an opportunity for profit. Prosecutors also allege he called the venture “the last [company] I have in me,” “the last juice I have to squeeze,” and a “magic ticket to a 10-30M exit” within 18 months.

Investigators say investor money began moving into Tarsha’s personal wallets within months. The indictment alleges he spent company funds on online gambling, cryptocurrency speculation and personal expenses. Messages cited by prosecutors say he admitted using company assets for “personal reasons,” including gambling, acknowledged the conduct was “unethical,” and said he did not want to “be held liable and pay a fine.”

Prosecutors also allege Tarsha paid himself a $360,000 annual salary and secretly approved $1.2 million in bonuses. They say he admitted he was making “way too much money given we’re over 6 months delayed on product and making virtually zero revenue,” yet wanted to “squeeze out a lot first for us.” He allegedly said another co-founder would “freak [] out” if the bonuses became known.

After an internal audit in June 2023, prosecutors say Tarsha falsely reassured investors while privately messaging his then-fiancée, “[O]nce we get ahold of the treasury we’ll have more fun with them,” later adding he planned to “take in $200K” and then “take in another $500k.” They say he soon sent her a link to a $350,000 luxury yacht.

Rather than continue building the platform, prosecutors allege he cut nearly all staff and told the remaining engineer “the main goal of the NFTs and collections we are displaying [on the website] is optics,” encouraging updates about features the company could build “even if we’re not planning to do it.” He also allegedly said he was “just playing a game” with investors who “do not understand crypto.”

The government says the FAR token launched in May 2024 before rapidly losing nearly all its value and eventually ceasing to trade. Prosecutors allege Tarsha kept using company money for speculative cryptocurrency purchases, a luxury Miami condominium, interior design services and his DJ hobby.

“Taj Tarsha is alleged to have concealed fraudulent conduct behind his crypto startup, using investor funds for personal benefit,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Jr. said. “Protecting the integrity of our financial markets is a priority, and the FBI remains steadfast in its commitment to conducting thorough and fact-driven investigations into potential financial offenses.”

If found guilty, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Featured image: Canva

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A federally regulated prediction market operator is asking a federal judge to block New York from enforcing state gambling laws against its sports event contracts, arguing that Congress placed those markets under the exclusive authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Ludlow Exchange LLC, which operates as Novig, filed the lawsuit Wednesday (August 5) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The defendants include Attorney General Letitia James, New York State Gaming Commission Executive Director Robert Williams, Gaming Commission Chair Brian O’Dwyer and other commission members in their official capacities.

Novig says federal oversight overrides New York gambling laws

The case arrived only a day after the CFTC approved Novig as a Designated Contract Market, allowing the company to launch a nationwide sports prediction market under a federal regulatory framework instead of pursuing state-by-state sportsbook licenses. Novig says that the structure gives users access across the US, greater liquidity, live trading, more payment options and additional compliance safeguards, while requiring participants to be at least 21 years old.

The complaint says New York has already targeted similar products through lawsuits involving Kalshi and Coinbase Financial Markets Inc.

“New York has moved aggressively against federally regulated event-contract trading within its borders,” the complaint states.

Novig officially received its CFTC designation on June 16 and says it began offering sports event contracts to New York customers the same day it filed suit. The company argues those products are federally regulated derivatives rather than wagers governed by state gambling laws.

“The event contracts Novig lists are a type of derivative instrument that is extensively regulated under federal law and that can be listed, traded, and settled only on federally registered exchanges,” the complaint says.

According to the filing, Congress granted the CFTC “exclusive jurisdiction” over those markets, preventing New York from applying its gambling and sports wagering laws to contracts traded on a designated exchange.

The lawsuit points to the state’s cease-and-desist action against Kalshi and later enforcement cases against Kalshi and Coinbase Financial Markets as evidence that Novig faces an immediate threat.

“Novig expects that New York will imminently bring an enforcement action against it along the same lines as the other lawsuits that Defendants have already brought against similarly situated parties,” the complaint states.

That dispute is already unfolding in another courtroom. Earlier this week, Kalshi shifted New York’s enforcement case into federal court, prompting a state judge to deny the attorney general’s request for emergency relief as moot while jurisdiction is decided.

Novig says its exchange includes deposit and trading limits, self-exclusion tools, market surveillance, employee integrity training and screening for prohibited traders. The company also says cumulative trading volume has exceeded $6 billion and stresses its exchange model, where users trade directly with one another instead of betting against a bookmaker.

According to the filing, “Congress recognized the obvious point that a national market cannot function under fifty regulators,” and intended the CFTC to provide a single regulatory framework for federally designated exchanges.

“Novig must either risk exposing the company to significant civil (and potentially even criminal) liability or refrain from offering event contracts to New Yorkers altogether,” the complaint states.

The company wants the court to declare that federal law preempts New York’s gambling laws and quickly issue an injunction, arguing that “the specter of New York enforcement is imminent and existential to Novig’s business operations.”

Featured image: Novig / Canva

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New York state investigators have issued document subpoenas to Kalshi seeking records tied to sports-event contracts, including transactions involving people under the age of 21, according to copies of the subpoenas and information shared by legal analyst Daniel Wallach.

The subpoenas, directed to Kalshi Inc. and KalshiEX LLC by the New York State Gaming Commission, require the companies to turn over records connected to an investigation into Kalshi’s operation as a platform for Sports Products. The documents request production as soon as possible and no later than August 14, 2026.

According to Wallach, the requests are limited to sports-event contracts and do not seek information about any other category of event contracts. He also said the subpoenas seek details of transactions involving persons “under the age of 21.”

Wallach wrote, “New York issues document subpoenas to Kalshi seeking details of transactions involving sports-event contracts and persons ‘under the age of 21.’ Subpoenas do not seek details of any other category of event contracts, just sports. First government subpoena directed at Kalshi.”

Subpoenas deepen New York case against Kalshi

The subpoenas cite Section 104(7) of the Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering and Breeding Law as the basis for the investigation. They also include broad definitions covering communications, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the New York State Gaming Commission and Kalshi’s corporate structure, including affiliated entities, owners and controlling interests.

Wallach linked the subpoenas to Kalshi’s recent procedural move in court.

“One reason why Kalshi quickly removed New York State’s civil enforcement lawsuit to federal court–it was served with subpoenas from state investigators seeking documents concerning its corporate structure, stock ownership and ‘Sports Product’ offerings no later than August 14th,” Wallach wrote.

The investigation comes days after New York sued Kalshi, alleging the company operates an unlicensed gambling business by offering contracts tied to sports, elections and other events without a state gaming license. Governor Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James argue the contracts violate New York gambling laws and have asked the court to permanently block the platform, requiring restitution, disgorgement of alleged profits, customer accounting and civil penalties.

“Kalshi has chosen to ignore New York’s gaming laws, which exist to protect consumers, prevent problematic gambling, deliver funding for critical public services, and ensure that every company plays by the same rules,” Hochul said in a statement.

“New York’s gambling laws protect children from underage betting and help combat gambling addiction,” James said. “No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple. By ignoring our laws, Kalshi is running an illegal operation and harming New Yorkers in the process. We are taking them to court to uphold our laws and protect New Yorkers.”

Kalshi removed the case to federal court on July 31. A New York judge later ruled the state’s request for immediate injunctive relief was moot because of the removal, leaving the federal court to decide the next steps while the Gaming Commission’s investigation continues.

Featured image: Kalshi / Canva

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A prediction market can sound like a financial tool built for people trying to forecast the future. Users buy contracts tied to an outcome: Will the Federal Reserve cut interest rates? How hot will it get in New York? Will a particular team win a championship?

But put a point spread, a money line or a player proposition on the screen, tribal gaming leaders told senators this week, and the distinction between a “prediction” and a bet becomes much harder to see.

On Tuesday (August 4), the Senate Indian Affairs Committee roundtable examined the proliferation of sports-related prediction markets and their effect on tribal gaming. Tribal leaders, gaming regulators, a state official and a public-health advocate argued that sports contracts offered through prediction markets are effectively sports betting — but without many of the state and tribal rules that ordinarily govern gambling.

The debate raises questions about who gets to regulate gambling, what happens to the tribal-state gaming system Congress established decades ago, and what protections consumers receive when something that looks like a bet is legally treated as a financial instrument.

And, for tribal governments, the stakes are especially high.

Prediction markets aren’t a novelty anymore

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, acknowledged that she initially viewed prediction markets as something of a novelty.

But this appeared to change as the industry grew. Murkowski said millions of Americans are now using prediction markets, with one leading platform reporting more than five million monthly active users. The range of contracts has expanded dramatically, covering everything from Federal Reserve decisions to the weather.

When you wager something of value on the outcome of a sporting event, it’s sports wagering. Relabeling the wager as an event contract or a prediction market or a derivative does not change what it is. – Jamie Hummingbird, National Tribal Gaming Commissioners & Regulators Chairman

And now, it seems that sports contracts have created the biggest legal collision.

Many tribes and states contend that contracts based on sporting events amount to sports betting and therefore fall under existing gaming laws. Prediction-market platforms and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, by contrast, have treated the products as federally regulated financial instruments under commodities law. Courts around the country are now considering where the legal boundary lies.

Sen. Brian Schatz put the issue in much simpler terms.

He quoted a federal judge considering prediction-market litigation: “It looks like gambling to me.”

For consumers, Schatz argued, the distinction can be difficult to see. Someone who wants to put money on the Philadelphia 76ers winning an NBA championship can use a conventional sportsbook or a prediction-market app.

“The consumer experience is exactly the same,” Schatz said.

This became a recurring theme throughout the roundtable: What matters more — the legal label attached to a transaction, or what the customer is actually doing?

Same wager, different rules

Jamie Hummingbird, chairman of the National Tribal Gaming Commissioners & Regulators, told the committee, “When you wager something of value on the outcome of a sporting event, it’s sports wagering,” calling the product an event contract, prediction market or derivative, he said, does not change its basic nature.

Indian gaming operates within a regulatory structure that took decades to build.

Tribal nations are stakeholders in tribal gaming. We are not shareholders. – Mark Macarro, National Congress of American Indians President

Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, or IGRA, in 1988, establishing a framework involving tribal sovereignty, federal oversight and, for Class III gaming, agreements negotiated between tribes and states. Hummingbird described that framework as a federal Indian-law “success story,” supported by tribal gaming commissions that oversee licensing, audits, game integrity, responsible gaming, patron protections and other requirements.

Tehassi Hill, vice chairman of the Indian Gaming Association and chairman of the Oneida Nation, said tribes spend more than $450 million each year regulating gambling and employ more than 6,000 regulators. Tribal gaming operations also maintain age restrictions and support problem-gambling programs including treatment, education, self-exclusion and employee training, he said.

Hill argued that prediction markets are offering familiar sportsbook products — “money lines, totals, parlays, prop bets” — while operating outside that regulatory structure.

“They claim to be innovators, but they have invented nothing,” Hill said.

Casino revenue keeps tribal governments running

The argument from tribal leaders was that tribal gaming revenue plays a fundamentally different role from ordinary corporate profit.

Hill told senators that gaming revenue funds health care, education, housing for elders, public safety and infrastructure. Tribal gaming also supported more than 682,000 jobs in 2025, he said, many of them in rural communities.

Murkowski framed the concern in similar terms. Tribal gaming generated a record $46.2 billion in gross gaming revenue in fiscal 2025, she said, while the broader economic output of Indian gaming was estimated at approximately $110 billion, including jobs, wages and activity in supporting industries. A major disruption to that industry, she warned, could therefore reach far beyond casino floors.

Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians and chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians, put it this way: “Tribal nations are stakeholders in tribal gaming. We are not shareholders.”

Gaming revenue, he said, is the “financial backbone” of government services in many tribal communities. If revenue moves to prediction-market operators that do not have the same compact, licensing and revenue-sharing obligations, tribes argue that the consequences will show up in public budgets.

Schatz said some tribal councils are already confronting those choices.

He described tribal leaders considering potential cuts to “public safety, education, infrastructure” and warned that Congress could not easily replace substantial losses in tribal gaming revenue through federal appropriations.

Exactly how much revenue is being lost, however, remains unsettled.

Hill said the Indian Gaming Association is working to analyze national data, although much of the information needed is proprietary and would have to be supplied by individual tribes. He pointed to work underway among Wisconsin tribes and the state to analyze that market.

Macarro also cautioned against relying on aggregate tribal gaming growth to conclude that prediction markets are having little effect. Overall revenue can rise because new gaming facilities open, he said, even while existing properties lose business. A more meaningful comparison would examine the same facilities year over year.

Financial rules weren’t built to regulate gambling

Tribal governments are not alone in challenging the expansion.

Ohio Solicitor General Mathura Sridharan told senators that her state became involved in the issue in early 2025, when prediction-market platforms began offering sports bets through their trading platforms. Ohio has since participated in litigation and led a coalition of 44 states responding to proposed CFTC rulemaking.

She focused on the different purposes of financial and gambling regulation.

Derivatives markets, she said, traditionally help businesses hedge risks, discover prices and allocate capital. Sports betting presents a different set of concerns.

“A wager on whether the Ohio State covers the spread is not managing commercial risk or facilitating price discovery,” Sridharan said.

States therefore regulate gambling with questions that commodities law was not designed primarily to answer: are vulnerable people being protected? Are operators encouraging responsible gambling? Are sports being protected against corruption?

State laws can require gambling companies to obtain licenses, verify bettors’ ages, report suspicious activity, operate responsible-gaming programs and offer voluntary self-exclusion. Prediction markets, Sridharan argued, can bypass many of those protections.

What if bettors think they’re investors?

Then Harry Levant shifted the conversation away from statutes, agencies and jurisdiction.

Levant, director of gambling policy at the Public Health Advocacy Institute, introduced himself as a clinician who treats gambling addiction, as well as a recovering gambling addict.

He told senators that he made his last bet on April 20, 2014, and survived a suicide attempt that night. The following year, after a gambling addiction that he said devastated his career and hurt his clients and family, the longtime lawyer stood in a Philadelphia courtroom as a disbarred attorney and criminal defendant and pleaded guilty to 13 financial felonies.

His central message to Congress was: “Prevention of harm is the single best form of treatment.”

Levant stressed that he does not favor prohibiting sports gambling altogether. He supports regulated legalization. His concern is the way modern gambling products can be delivered constantly through smartphones, combining sports, technology and rapid-fire wagering in ways that can intensify risk.

Prediction markets add another complication. Some people may not realize they are gambling.

Levant said six clients in his recovery group had returned to gambling through prediction markets during the previous three months.

Why?

“Because they thought they were making investments,” he told senators.

Congress now has to draw the line

There was broad agreement among the roundtable participants that Congress should act, although there was less agreement about exactly which legislative vehicle should carry that response.

Hill urged lawmakers to advance legislation explicitly addressing prediction markets and to protect state and tribal gambling laws. Macarro called for enforcement of existing law and noted that four of the CFTC’s five commission seats were vacant. Hummingbird asked for a clear regulatory framework. Sridharan called for legislation making clear that financial derivatives law does not displace state and tribal gaming law.

Some senators discussed adding language to pending legislation to make clear that the Commodity Exchange Act does not preempt IGRA, tribal-state gaming compacts or tribal sovereignty. Others cautioned against attaching the prediction-market fight to legislation primarily focused on other subjects.

The conversation ultimately kept returning to a deceptively basic question.

When someone opens an app, chooses a team, puts money on an uncertain sporting outcome and gets paid if that prediction is right, what exactly are they doing?

Prediction-market operators may describe that transaction using the language of contracts and financial markets. Tribal gaming officials, state regulators and public-health advocates at the roundtable used another word.

A bet.

And their message to Congress was that the answer will determine far more than what these products are called. It will determine who regulates them, which consumer protections apply, whether states and tribes can enforce their own gaming laws, and whether a regulatory system built over decades can be bypassed by changing the terminology on a smartphone screen.

Hummingbird warned, the current fight may still be relatively small because prediction markets have only recently begun gaining momentum. But waiting, he argued, could make the problem much harder to contain.

“We have the ability now to administer that one ounce of prevention,” he said. “But it must be done, and it must be done pretty quickly.”

Featured image: C-SPAN

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Novig is taking its sports prediction market across the United States after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved the New York company as a Designated Contract Market.

The designation puts Novig under a federal regulatory structure rather than the state-by-state licensing system used by traditional sportsbooks. It also gives the startup a nationwide route into a market dominated by operators such as DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM.

Users now have access to instant live trading, additional payment methods and greater liquidity. Novig says those upgrades should improve pricing and make trading sports markets quicker, including while games are underway.

Federal oversight also comes with additional controls. The company says it has expanded its compliance program, market surveillance and protections against manipulation and insider activity. Users must be at least 21.

“For too long, sports fans have had limited ways to engage with the markets they know best. They are among the most passionate and informed communities in the world, yet they’ve never had a platform truly built around how they think, engage, and trade,” said Jacob Fortinsky, co-founder and CEO of Novig. “We built Novig to change that, not only by creating the best place to trade sports, but by setting the standard for what a modern sports prediction market should be.

“That has meant building with trust, transparency, and responsible participation at the center, including maintaining a 21+ age requirement and investing in the compliance, market surveillance, and safeguards needed to scale responsibly. This launch is a major step toward bringing that vision to more users than ever before.”

Novig nationwide exchange market model challenges traditional sportsbooks

The company says cumulative trading volume has now exceeded $6 billion. Nationwide access could potentially bring more participants onto the platform, potentially adding liquidity and increasing trading activity.

Novig’s model also differs from a conventional sportsbook. Rather than having a bookmaker establish odds and take the other side of wagers, its exchange supposedly lets users trade with one another, with prices shaped by supply and demand.

This could have implications for sports betting. Major sportsbooks have spent years securing licenses and market access separately across states, while Novig’s CFTC designation provides a single federal framework for its prediction market.

The company has also made its treatment of successful customers part of its pitch. Novig says it does not impose punitive limits on winning traders, contrasting its exchange approach with restrictions that can be placed on successful sportsbook customers.

The CFTC designation places the business within a regulatory system associated with futures and derivatives markets, adding to the wider debate over whether sports event contracts should be treated as financial products or conventional gambling.

Novig describes itself as a platform created specifically for sports traders. Its designated contract market operates through Ludlow Exchange, LLC.

Featured image: Novig

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Kalshi is heading toward an appeal after a federal judge in Utah ruled that the Commodity Exchange Act does not shield the prediction-market company’s sports contracts from state gambling laws.

U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby sided with Utah officials on Tuesday (August 4), granting them summary judgment while rejecting Kalshi’s bid for a preliminary injunction. The company wanted the court to find that federal commodities regulation prevented Utah from enforcing its anti-gambling statutes against Kalshi.

Legal expert Daniel Wallach said August 5 that Kalshi will take the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. It would bring prediction-market appeals into seven of the 13 federal judicial circuits, he said, while the Seventh and Eighth circuits are also expected to join.

The dispute followed public criticism of sports prediction markets from Gov. Spencer Cox. Worried that Utah could pursue criminal enforcement to halt its sports event contracts, Kalshi sued on February 23. It sought a ruling that the CEA overrides Utah laws that “effectively regulates” Kalshi’s federally regulated designated contract market.

Utah retains gambling authority despite federal commodities oversight in Kalshi case

Kalshi’s case centers around the CFTC’s authority over federally regulated markets. Kalshi maintained that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s “exclusive jurisdiction” over swaps on designated contract markets meant Utah could not enforce its gambling statutes against those contracts.

Shelby reached the opposite conclusion, finding no express preemption of Utah’s enforcement authority in the CEA’s jurisdiction provision. Because the statute preserves roles for both state and federal courts, he concluded that it “strongly signals there is room for State regulation” alongside federal commodities oversight.

Kalshi also failed to persuade Shelby that federal law implicitly displaced Utah’s authority. He pointed to Congress’ position that states bear primary responsibility for determining what gambling may legally operate within their borders. After examining field and conflict preemption, Shelby found neither blocked Utah.

Kalshi’s conflict-preemption argument focused partly on access requirements. The company said Utah could force it to block state residents even though federal rules require designated contract markets to offer impartial access. It also argued that separate state gambling regimes would undermine Congress’ aim of establishing a national market with uniform rules. Shelby found Utah enforcement could still coexist with federal requirements.

Kalshi began offering the sports contracts at issue in January 2025. The ruling described markets tied to losing streaks, victory margins, specified touchdowns by players or teams, and the identity of the Super Bowl singer.

Utah, by contrast, classifies “proposition bets” involving an individual action, statistic, occurrence or non-occurrence as gambling. Under provisions discussed in Shelby’s ruling, offering online gambling there can amount to a third-degree felony.

The decision was already being cited outside Utah by August 4, when New York’s Attorney General’s Office submitted Shelby’s ruling as supplemental authority in another federal prediction-market case.

Kalshi’s expected Tenth Circuit appeal will now put Shelby’s conclusion — that state gambling enforcement can operate alongside federal commodities regulation — before an appellate court.

Featured image: Canva / Kalshi

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Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour is escalating his company’s fight with New York, saying officials turned down a tax proposal that he estimates could bring the state nearly $10 billion over five years.

Speaking Monday (August 3) on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Mansour said the prediction-market operator had tried to address concerns about tax revenue and consumer protections rather than leave New York.

“We put out a proposal in front of the governor” that would establish “some sort of taxation on the prediction market industry,” Mansour said, according to a transcript of the interview provided for this article. He said the proposal could raise “close to $10 billion over the next five years.”

That nearly $10 billion figure comes from Kalshi and has not been independently substantiated. Mansour said the money could help fund schools and health care.

Governor Kathy Hochul made clear that potential tax revenue would not change the state’s position.

“Kalshi can promise 100% of its revenue,” Hochul wrote. “You can’t buy yourself an exemption from New York law. If an illegal bookie offers the state a share of their profits, we’ll still shut them down.”

New York sued Kalshi on July 31, alleging the federally regulated exchange is running an illegal gambling business without state registration. The state wants Kalshi’s New York operations stopped and is seeking penalties and other financial relief.

Kalshi argues its event contracts are federally regulated financial derivatives overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not ordinary wagers governed by individual state gambling laws. The CFTC has backed that jurisdictional argument, suing New York in April and asserting federal authority over event contracts.

New York and Kalshi clash over tax, customer gains and regulation 

Mansour also argued that New Yorkers using Kalshi have collectively made money this year.

Asked about their combined profits and losses, Mansour said: “They made $200 million. Plus $200 million.”

“They have made over $200 million because New Yorkers are smart and they’re doing a good job,” Mansour said. He also claimed sportsbook customers were down $200 million over the same period. Those figures have not been independently verified.

Mansour defended prediction markets against concerns that wealthy traders could manipulate political-market prices, arguing other participants would have an incentive to trade against distorted prices.

He pointed to Washington Post analysis of 2026 primary-election markets. The newspaper found that outcomes generally tracked the probabilities markets assigned, although experts cautioned that those probabilities should not be treated as certainty.

The larger fight remains one of regulatory authority. Kalshi says federal oversight prevents states from treating its contracts as illegal gambling. New York says federal registration does not allow companies to bypass state gambling protections.

Kalshi lost an important round July 7 when U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres denied its request for a preliminary injunction against New York enforcement. Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James responded: “New York’s gambling laws are designed to protect consumers. Kalshi tried to ignore them.”

Mansour compared Kalshi’s regulatory battles with earlier fights involving Uber and Airbnb, saying the company remains willing to discuss consumer protections and reasonable taxation rather than leave New York.

Featured image: CNBC

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DraftKings is being sued in a second proposed class action that claims its Predictions platform operates as an unlicensed sportsbook, with sports bets packaged for customers as financial-style “event contracts.”

The case was filed Monday (August 3) in Massachusetts federal court by Jason Gordon, Arie Weissmann and Johnny Harris. DraftKings Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary GUS III LLC, which operates as DraftKings Predictions, are named as defendants. The three plaintiffs want to represent other Predictions users who they allege lost money.

According to the complaint, Predictions debuted in December 2025 and has since become available in states where DraftKings does not have authorization to run a licensed sportsbook.

Customers can wager money on sports outcomes, the lawsuit alleges, even though DraftKings calls the transactions “trading,” “predictions” and “event contracts.” The plaintiffs say those labels do not alter what customers are doing: risking money on an outcome for the chance of receiving a payout.

Plaintiffs in second class action lawsuit say DraftKings Predictions functions as an unlicensed sportsbook

To support that argument, the complaint points out how Predictions looks and operates. Screenshots in the filing display sports matchups with spreads, totals and odds. On page 18, one example features the Dallas Mavericks and Toronto Raptors, giving users “Yes” or “No” choices on whether Dallas will win by particular point margins.

How DraftKings generates revenue from Predictions is also disputed. The lawsuit points to terms allowing market makers to take the other side of customer transactions, while DraftKings affiliates can also serve as market makers.

According to the plaintiffs, DraftKings collects transaction fees and may receive additional payments tied to routing transactions. They allege customers do not receive adequate information about those relationships or total transaction costs before participating.

The complaint says DraftKings’ terms themselves recognize uncertainty over event-contract regulation. It quotes a risk disclosure referring to “active and evolving litigation and regulatory activity” concerning whether state gambling laws apply to those contracts.

All three plaintiffs report losing money. Gordon, who lives in Texas, claims losses exceeding $700. Fellow Texas resident Weissmann alleges he lost more than $1,000 before joining DraftKings’ self-exclusion program. Harris, from California, claims losses above $100 as well as transaction fees.

The filing also cites DraftKings CEO Jason Robins, saying he acknowledged that “customers don’t really even understand the difference” between Predictions and the licensed sportsbook and called that “actually a huge advantage.”

Another proposed class action reached the same court July 28. Plaintiff Michael Chan alleges Predictions enables illegal sports wagers where online betting is prohibited or DraftKings is unlicensed. He seeks classes covering Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, South Carolina and Texas, plus a separate California class.

Gordon, Weissmann and Harris allege violations of Massachusetts gambling law and unfair or deceptive practices. They want money allegedly taken unlawfully from Predictions customers returned, along with costs and attorneys’ fees, and have requested a jury trial.

Both lawsuits contain allegations from plaintiffs that have not been established by the court.

Featured image: DraftKings

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Kalshi is asking a federal judge in Iowa to block state officials from enforcing gambling laws against sports event contracts available through its federally regulated prediction market.

In a July 31 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, the company argued that Congress placed trading on designated contract markets under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s “exclusive jurisdiction”. Kalshi says Iowa would intrude on that authority by treating trades on its exchange as violations of state law.

The filing supports Kalshi’s bid for a preliminary injunction against Attorney General Brenna Bird, the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission and several commission officials. Kalshi says it only wants to prevent state gambling and criminal statutes from being applied to transactions executed on its designated contract market, rather than restrict Iowa’s enforcement powers.

State officials have characterized Kalshi’s sports contracts offered to Iowa residents as criminal “bookmaking” and unlawful “gambling.” Kalshi argues those positions leave it facing a credible enforcement threat, possible criminal liability and additional compliance expenses.

Kalshi says federal oversight overrides Iowa gambling laws

Iowa is arguing that products traded on a federally supervised derivatives exchange should fall under state authority. Kalshi maintains that its sports contracts qualify as swaps under federal law because their value depends on events or contingencies carrying potential financial or economic consequences.

“States cannot invade the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction” “by re-characterizing swaps trad[ed] on DCMs as illegal gambling,” the filing states, quoting a CFTC amicus brief cited by Kalshi.

The dispute began before the latest filing. Kalshi sued Iowa officials on March 11 after a March 4 meeting with Bird and attorneys from her office shifted toward questions about whether its contracts violated state law. When Kalshi later sought clarity about possible action, an official responded, “we will not give any assurances about potential future enforcement.”

Iowa lawmakers have meanwhile pursued legislation specifically addressing prediction markets. Senate File 2494, advanced by the Senate Ways and Means Committee in April, would establish state rules for event-driven contracts and federally regulated designated contract markets.

The proposal includes a 21-year minimum age, restrictions involving officials and people with insider information, consumer safeguards and controls on advertising. Platforms would also face requirements covering manipulation monitoring, suspicious-activity reporting and internal compliance systems. The attorney general could pursue fines reaching $10,000 per violation and $50,000 for repeat violations, with much larger penalties for ignoring court orders.

Kalshi argues Iowa’s separate requirements for sports wagering businesses, including casino or racetrack partnerships and in-state geolocation, conflict with a nationwide exchange designed to provide impartial access. Decisions about prohibiting particular event contracts belong to the CFTC, it says, “not to fifty state regulators.”

The company also cited a July 27 Minnesota ruling temporarily blocking enforcement there and pointed to litigation in Nevada, New Jersey, Tennessee and Arizona. Without an Iowa injunction, Kalshi says it could face geofencing expenses, business restrictions and position liquidations affecting customers beyond the state.

Featured image: Kalshi / Canva

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A New York judge has ended the state-court proceeding against prediction-market operator Kalshi after the company shifted the fight to federal court, leaving Attorney General Letitia James’ request for immediate restrictions undecided.

Supreme Court Justice Melissa A. Crane ruled Monday (August 3) that New York’s request for an injunction or restraining order was moot. She denied it without prejudice, allowing the state to try again if a federal judge sends the case back.

Crane also told the New York County Supreme Court clerk to mark the proceeding as disposed.

The procedural turn came after Kalshi filed for removal on July 31 while New York’s request for emergency relief was still awaiting a decision.

“Respondent removed this matter to federal court on 7/31/26 (Doc 59 [notice of removal]),” Crane wrote in the order.

“Accordingly, it is ORDERED that Motion 01 is denied as moot, without prejudice to a new motion should the federal court remand this special proceeding.”

New York Kalshi case moved to federal court

Behind that procedural ruling is a clash over whether Kalshi’s event contracts amount to gambling under New York law. James and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the lawsuit July 31, accusing Kalshi of offering contracts tied to sports, elections and other events without a state gaming license.

The state wants Kalshi blocked from operating in New York and is seeking restitution, alleged profits, customer accounting and civil penalties.

“Kalshi has chosen to ignore New York’s gaming laws, which exist to protect consumers, prevent problematic gambling, deliver funding for critical public services, and ensure that every company plays by the same rules,” Hochul said in a statement. “This choice has consequences, and working closely with Attorney General James, New York is taking action to stop this illegal behavior and bring Kalshi into compliance, because no company is above the law.”

“New York’s gambling laws protect children from underage betting and help combat gambling addiction,” James said. “No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple. By ignoring our laws, Kalshi is running an illegal operation and harming New Yorkers in the process. We are taking them to court to uphold our laws and protect New Yorkers.”

Kalshi launched its platform in 2021 and expanded into sports markets in January 2025, promoting “legal sports markets, accessible to Americans in all 50 states.”

“Respondent has reported a $22 billion valuation of its gambling business and an annualized transaction volume of $178 billion,” the petition states, accusing Kalshi of avoiding state gambling rules through “event contracts” offered on a “prediction market.”

Investor Protection Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe said New Yorkers remained exposed while Kalshi operated.

“I submit this affirmation of emergency because Respondent is presently violating the laws of this State,” Maswoswe wrote, saying “each day these unlicensed and underregulated entities are operating within and from New York subjects New Yorkers to actual harm.”

“Respondent continues to operate its gambling platform from New York,” the affirmation states.

Hochul has separately targeted prediction-market conflicts involving public employees. “Getting rich by betting on inside information is corruption, plain and simple,” she said.

Crane’s order settles none of those allegations. For now, the federal court will determine what happens next, including whether the dispute returns to state court.

Featured image: Kalshi / Canva

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The U.S. Department of the Interior has reversed its approval of a proposed Scotts Valley casino in Vallejo, concluding after a 16-month review that the site does not qualify for gaming.

The department announced Friday that the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians had not shown the historical connection to the property required under federal law. Officials reconsidered the January 2025 approval after saying evidence had previously been improperly left out.

Opponents have argued the property falls within Patwin ancestral territory. The department had reached similar conclusions three times before the January approval, finding Scotts Valley lacked a “significant historical connection” to the proposed gaming site.

The dispute continued while federal officials reviewed the decision. Scotts Valley pursued a temporary “preview casino” using modular buildings and Class II gaming machines near Interstate 80 and Highway 37. Four California tribes urged the band to wait for the federal review before beginning gaming operations.

Yocha Dehe also sued Vallejo in June over city approvals connected with the temporary casino. Its complaint challenged an encroachment permit and memorandum of understanding, arguing the city had not followed California environmental and local-government requirements.

Federal approval reversal ends Scotts Valley’s gaming eligibility for Vallejo casino site

“Today’s decision reflects a fair, transparent, fact-based review of Scotts Valley’s alleged historical connection to Vallejo that we have long advocated for,” said Yocha Dehe Chairman Anthony Roberts, in a statement sent to ReadWrite. 

“Since the beginning, all we have asked is that all the facts be considered and our voices be heard. The Department took the time to consider all the facts and evidence, and that evidence revealed what history already makes clear: this land is Patwin ancestral territory. It always has been, and it always will be. This process has been difficult and painful, but today’s decision brings long-overdue validation and begins to set things right.”

Roberts said Yocha Dehe’s objections were about protecting ancestral territory, rather than stopping other tribes from developing casinos.

“For generations, our people have worked to protect the lands, waters, and cultural resources in Vallejo and the surrounding areas of Patwin ancestral territory, and we will continue that work for generations to come,” Chairman Roberts continued. “Our fight has never been about holding another tribe down. It was about protecting Patwin ancestral territory and about ensuring that decisions on tribal lands are made fairly, lawfully, and based on true historical ties. We have always been and we remain committed to supporting tribes pursuing gaming within their own homelands.”

Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, another non-gaming Patwin tribe that opposed the development, also welcomed the outcome.

“Our Tribe has consistently stood firm in defense of Patwin ancestral lands and the integrity of the restored-lands process,” said Charlie Wright, Chairman of the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, a non-gaming Patwin tribe that opposed the proposed development in ancestral Patwin territory. “Scotts Valley has not demonstrated the significant historical connection to Vallejo required under federal law. We support tribes securing trust lands and pursuing economic development through the legal pathway supported by the historical record. Today’s decision upholds the integrity of the restored-lands gaming-eligibility process and ensures decisions are based on the documented historical ties required by federal law.”

Featured image: Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians

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Richard Desmond-linked businesses have been denied permission to keep fighting the UK National Lottery license in court, handing another legal win to the Gambling Commission and Allwyn.

The Court of Appeal decision comes after the High Court threw out every claim from The New Lottery Company Limited, known as TNLC, and Northern & Shell in April. Their case targeted the contest for the fourth National Lottery license as well as subsequent changes to Allwyn’s agreement.

After that defeat, TNLC and Northern & Shell asked to appeal parts of the judgment. Coulson LJ has now turned down each of their three proposed appeal grounds.

The decision marks another stage in a years-long fight surrounding one of Britain’s largest public contracts. Allwyn secured the 10-year license in 2022 before replacing Camelot as National Lottery operator in February 2024, bringing Camelot’s 30-year run to an end.

Desmond’s businesses were seeking up to £1.3 billion ($1.8 million) in damages. Their case claimed the bidding process contained “manifest errors” and argued that alterations made following Allwyn’s selection meant officials should have run the competition again.

They also reported spending £17.5 million ($23.6 million) putting together their unsuccessful bid.

License appeal rejected as National Lottery overhaul continues

Mrs Justice Smith rejected the entire case in April, concluding that the Gambling Commission had run the competition lawfully and fairly. Arguments that Allwyn or Camelot should have been excluded were also dismissed.

TNLC and Northern & Shell subsequently sought to bring part of their challenge before the Court of Appeal.

In refusing permission, Coulson LJ found that TNLC could not introduce a fresh legal argument, especially after that argument had specifically been excluded during the High Court proceedings. He further found that TNLC’s chances of success would have been “vanishingly small” even if a lower standard of proof applied.

With the appeal effort over, Allwyn is pressing ahead with a substantial technology revamp for the National Lottery. More than £350 million ($472 million) has been promised for modernization of systems that, according to the operator, have gone without a major technology upgrade since 2009.

Allwyn has previously attributed delays in its original schedule to the project’s size and complexity, challenges against the licensing process and dependence on outside suppliers. Meanwhile, the Gambling Commission had been weighing possible enforcement measures after the operator failed to meet a contractual transition milestone.

The regulator said the Court of Appeal outcome clears the way for that program to carry on.

A commission spokesperson said: “This is an important decision for the operation of The National Lottery and one that we welcome. The Gambling Commission ran a fair and robust competition to award the Fourth National Lottery Licence and that none of the contested changes to the Licence, in the course of its implementation, were substantial or contrary to the relevant procurement regulations.

“The decision gives resounding support to Good Causes by enabling Allwyn, with oversight from the Commission, to continue with their plans for investment in The National Lottery without further distraction. Our priority remains to continue regulating The National Lottery for the benefit of participants and Good Causes.”

Featured image: Flickr, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

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Kalshi came to the Sixth Circuit on Thursday (July 30) stating that sports-event contracts traded on its federally regulated prediction market are financial instruments under federal commodities law, and states such as Ohio and Tennessee therefore largely need to keep their hands off them.

The judges did not exactly roll out the welcome mat.

Kalshi federal-preemption theory meets a skeptical Sixth Circuit bench

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit — Judges Eric Clay, Julia Smith Gibbons and Rachel Bloomekatz — repeatedly pressed Kalshi on just how far its preemption argument goes, whether sports bets really look like the swaps Congress had in mind when it passed Dodd-Frank and, perhaps most importantly, why states should suddenly lose an authority over gambling they have exercised for generations.

At one point, Clay put the issue rather plainly.

“Why are you so disparaging of state regulators and state policymakers?” he asked Kalshi attorney William Havemann.

Clay said Kalshi appeared to be making a policy argument that “things come out badly when they fall within the purview of state regulators,” adding that he was not sure he followed the notion “that all things are better if they come from the federal government.”

Havemann quickly clarified that he was not arguing federal regulation is inherently superior. Traditional sportsbooks, he said, can sensibly remain under state control. His point was that Congress made a different choice for nationwide derivatives exchanges.

The main distinction — traditional sports betting over here, federally regulated event contracts over there — was essentially the whole ballgame Thursday.

The consolidated appeals involve two cases that reached opposite results. Ohio is appealing a preliminary injunction preventing it from enforcing its sports-betting laws against Kalshi, while Kalshi is appealing a ruling denying it similar relief against Tennessee. The Sixth Circuit heard the cases together, with Kalshi getting 15 minutes and the two states splitting another 15, although the clock proved somewhat aspirational once the judges got going.

They are arguing whether Kalshi’s sports-event contracts fall within the federal derivatives regime and, if they do, whether the Commodity Exchange Act’s grant of “exclusive jurisdiction” to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission prevents states from applying their own gambling laws.

Kalshi says yes.

Havemann argued that a nationwide exchange cannot realistically operate if every state gets to decide which contracts its residents may trade. In Kalshi’s view, the CFTC is supposed to make those calls nationally rather than leaving the exchange to litigate its product catalog in “50 different states.”

The panel seemed less convinced that Congress had spoken quite so clearly.

Clay questioned whether ordinary gambling transactions resemble swaps at all. The statute gives examples such as interest-rate, currency and commodity swaps, he noted, while “an immediate gambling transaction” does not necessarily fit comfortably into that financial framework.

And then there was the sports problem.

Kalshi argued that sports events can plainly have “potential financial, commercial or economic consequences,” pointing to the enormous sums generated by sponsors, advertisers, broadcasters and other businesses. A championship result can move plenty of money even before anyone opens a prediction-market account.

But the judges kept pulling at the loose threads.

What about a contract on the number of corner kicks in a soccer match? What about granular player propositions? What about some highly specific in-game occurrence that may be entertaining to wager on but looks considerably less like the sort of financial risk that brought Congress running after the 2008 financial crisis?

Kalshi’s answer was essentially that drawing those lines is the CFTC’s job. Havemann cautioned against treating individual examples as dispositive because sports in 2026 are “huge business,” with economic consequences extending through sponsors, networks, advertisers and online communities.

That did not end the hypotheticals.

The panel pressed Havemann on what Kalshi’s theory would mean for the remaining powers of states. Suppose, for example, the CFTC allowed people below a certain age to participate in a federally regulated prediction market. Could Ohio nevertheless say participants must be 18?

Havemann said “probably” not if the restriction amounted to an access criterion regulating the exchange.

The hypothetical got more pointed from there. What if a state wanted to restrict election contracts because it believed allowing residents to make money from election outcomes could distort democratic participation?

Again, Havemann acknowledged that if the federal regulator had permitted the contract, a state generally could not independently prohibit it. The state could challenge the CFTC under the Administrative Procedure Act, but it could not simply substitute its own judgment.

“They can’t make their own determination about what’s reasonable or things like that,” a judge asked.

“That’s right,” Havemann replied, saying a single set of rules was necessary rather than 50.

States argue sports bets are not swaps, and state authority survives regardless

Ohio was more than happy to take that argument to its logical conclusion.

Mathura Sridharan, arguing for the state, told the panel that if Kalshi’s reading of Dodd-Frank is correct, the implications are rather extraordinary: Sports bets qualifying as swaps should have been occurring on federally regulated exchanges since roughly 2010.

In other words, states, sportsbooks, regulators and apparently everyone else somehow missed the federal takeover of sports betting.

“If Kalshi is right today,” Sridharan argued, “all sports bets since about 2010 had to have happened on federally regulated exchanges.”

Ohio’s preferred explanation was that Kalshi is wrong because sports bets are not swaps. Traditional derivatives markets may attract speculation, Sridharan argued, but Kalshi “flips that on its head” by beginning with speculation and then building a market around it.

Ohio also challenged Kalshi’s reliance on the phrase “exclusive jurisdiction.” According to the state, Congress knows perfectly well how to write a preemption clause when it wants one. The Commodity Exchange Act uses explicit language such as “supersede” and “preempt” elsewhere, while the provision Kalshi relies upon does not.

The panel seemed interested in that difference, repeatedly asking what the exclusive-jurisdiction provision actually does and how it should be reconciled with statutory language preserving some role for state regulators.

Tennessee Assistant Attorney General Aaron Bernard followed with an even more colorful description of Kalshi’s theory.

“Kalshi believes the Dodd-Frank Act legalized sports gambling across the country with a massive new role for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission as its sole regulator,” the rough transcript records Bernard saying, before arguing Congress “did not put the elephant of nationwide sports gambling into the mouse hole of the generic Dodd-Frank swap definition and the generic jurisdictional grant.” The transcript contains obvious transcription errors; the company name in Bernard’s remarks is Kalshi.

Bernard argued that Dodd-Frank’s swap definition does not turn on Kalshi’s preferred distinction between a “trade” and a “bet.” If the terms of a sports wager satisfy the swap definition, Tennessee argued, then Kalshi’s theory creates an awkward consequence: those sports bets would generally have to occur on federally regulated exchanges too.

The states offered the panel another way out as well.

Even if some Kalshi contracts qualify as swaps, Tennessee argued, that does not necessarily mean state gambling laws disappear. The CFTC may have exclusive jurisdiction to enforce federal commodities law without Congress having extinguished otherwise applicable state gambling laws.

That approach could be attractive if the judges would rather not decide whether every championship contract, player prop and corner-kick market in Kalshi’s catalog qualifies as a federally regulated derivative.

Indeed, the panel repeatedly entertained the possibility that some contracts might have genuine economic consequences while others are a stretch.

Tennessee said that would still be bad news for Kalshi because the company sought broad preliminary relief. If Kalshi cannot show that all the covered contracts qualify for protection, Bernard argued, it has not carried the burden required for such an injunction.

Clay appeared particularly interested in the basic financial nature of a swap.

“When we talk about swaps,” he said, the court is talking about a commercial or financial transaction involving “the transfer of future financial risk.” Not all sports betting does that, he suggested.

Bernard agreed, enthusiastically.

He contrasted financial hedging and price discovery with speculation over “whether or not there’ll be three or four corner kicks in a soccer game” or whether an NBA player will record a certain number of assists.

“This is not associated with any financial consequence directly,” Bernard argued, “and it’s way well outside of the financial risk context” Dodd-Frank was designed to address.

Consequences and difficult hypotheticals expose the stakes of Kalshi’s position 

Kalshi got the last word and used it to warn that the states’ theory has some odd consequences of its own.

In rebuttal, Havemann argued that allowing state gambling laws to reach federally regulated exchange trading would amount to a “sea change” in more than 50 years of commodities law.

After all, gambling laws historically did not stop with football parlays and horse races. Tennessee itself had an 1883 statute treating certain contracts involving grain, cotton and other commodities as gambling when the parties had no intention of making delivery.

So if the states can apply their gambling laws to instruments traded on federally regulated exchanges simply because the instruments resemble wagers, Havemann argued, their theory does not necessarily stop with sports.

It could take everyone right back to gambling on grain.

“That would really be a radical change,” Havemann told the court.

No ruling came from the bench.

Clay thanked all sides for their “very able arguments,” and the court took the cases under advisement.

If oral argument is any indication, however, Kalshi has some convincing left to do.

Featured image: Kalshi / Canva

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The WNBA has taken down a social media video showing Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese talking about an apparent $400 wager tied to a game between their teams. The league later acknowledged that its attempt at humor had gone too far.

The conversation dated back to All-Star weekend, when Bueckers and Reese apparently agreed to put $400 on their matchup. The WNBA initially posted the clip on its own account, adding the caption “We did?” and a laughing emoji, before deleting it.

The league later told ReadWrite that players receive yearly instruction about its ban on betting on WNBA games.

“While the social media post was intended to be lighthearted, WNBA players are well aware of the league’s policies prohibiting betting on WNBA games and receive training every year reinforcing those policies. We recognized that the post missed the mark, removed it shortly after it was published, and addressed the matter internally. 

“We will also use this as an opportunity to reemphasize with the players involved that conversations about wagering on WNBA games, even when intended as a joke, can have negative consequences.”

Bueckers and Reese exchange clashes with WNBA betting rules

An interviewer raised the subject with Bueckers, asking whether the agreement made with Reese during All-Star weekend remained in place.

“At All-Star weekend, you and Angel made a bet with each other on this game. Is that bet still on?” the interviewer asked.

“We did. This is how the rich stay rich,” Bueckers replied.

From there, the players talked through what the winner would receive. Reese said, “If y’all win—if y’all win, you get $400.”

“I get $400,” Bueckers replied.

Reese later said, “Bet. I’m standing on it.”

“I’m standing on it,” Bueckers responded.

WNBA rules bar players from wagering on league competition. After a hearing, the Commissioner can punish a player found to have directly or indirectly wagered, or attempted to wager, money or something valuable on a WNBA game’s outcome, score or another element.

Available sanctions range from fines and suspensions to dismissal or disqualification from further WNBA involvement.

No punishment for Bueckers or Reese was announced in the league’s statement. Instead, the WNBA said the situation had been handled internally and would prompt another reminder about its gambling policies.

The episode also comes as professional basketball faces wider scrutiny around gambling. In November 2025, the NBA requested documents and phone records from several teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, following a federal illegal gambling investigation.

At least 10 Lakers employees had cooperated with authorities. The wider NBA gambling scrutiny has also included Jontay Porter’s lifetime ban after the league found he deliberately limited his participation for betting purposes, along with other federal and league investigations.

Featured image: John McClellan via Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0

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Novig is becoming the exclusive official prediction market partner of the New York Mets through a new multi-year agreement, creating what the companies say is the first partnership between a Major League Baseball franchise and a prediction market company.

The collaboration starts this season and brings Novig into the Mets’ in-stadium, broadcast, digital, and social media channels. Fans visiting Citi Field will see branded signage, in-game features, broadcast-visible placements, exclusive promotions, original content, and interactive experiences tied to the company’s sports trading platform. Novig is also preparing for a nationwide launch next month as a federally regulated sports prediction market focused solely on sports.

Novig New York Mets deal highlights baseball’s evolving fan engagement

The agreement is Novig’s first partnership with a professional sports team and reflects the Mets’ attempt to use emerging technology to create new ways for supporters to follow the club.

“We’re proud to be the first Major League Baseball club to partner with a prediction market company, giving our fans a new and engaging way to connect with the game,” said Lew Sherr, President of Business Operations for the New York Mets, in a statement.

“Innovation is a defining characteristic of our business, and this partnership is another example of our commitment to staying at the forefront of the evolving sports landscape. It reflects our broader goal of delivering unique experiences for our fans and continuing to attract industry-leading partners who want to grow alongside the Mets.”

Earlier this year, Major League Baseball (MLB) and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission signed a memorandum of understanding covering information sharing, market monitoring, and efforts to detect fraud or manipulation involving baseball-related event contracts. At the same time, MLB named Polymarket its exclusive league-wide prediction market exchange partner, giving that company access to official league data and commercial rights.

Novig recently received MLB Authorized Prediction Market status, allowing it to work with clubs, use official league data, and participate in the league’s integrity program. That framework includes cooperation on monitoring, reporting protocols, and restrictions on higher-risk markets that could threaten competitive integrity.

The league has also tightened its rules for players. A memo distributed during the 2025 season instructed players not to participate in baseball-related prediction market contracts offered through platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket, treating those activities as prohibited under MLB’s long-standing betting rules. The guidance followed heightened concern over gambling-related investigations and reflected the league’s determination to separate fan engagement opportunities from participant conduct.

“Our mission is to build the home for sports trading,” said Jacob Fortinsky, CEO and co-founder of Novig. “Partnering with one of baseball’s most iconic franchises allows us to bring that vision directly to fans in one of the greatest sports markets in the world. The Mets have consistently embraced innovation that enhances the fan experience, and together, we’re introducing a new way for fans to engage with the game that is transparent, regulated, and built on integrity.”

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New York is taking its fight against prediction markets to court, with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announcing Friday (July 31) that the state has sued Kalshi, alleging the federally regulated prediction market operator is running an illegal gambling business by offering contracts on sports, elections and other future events without a New York gaming license.

The lawsuit, filed in New York Supreme Court under Executive Law § 63(12), which gives the Attorney General power to investigate and stop repeated fraud or illegal acts in business, seeks a permanent order blocking Kalshi from operating in the state. It also asks the court to require the company to give up its alleged profits, compensate customers, provide a full accounting of wagers and losses, and pay civil penalties, including fines equal to three times its alleged illegal gains.

The legal action follows a series of moves by New York targeting prediction markets. In April, Hochul signed an executive order barring covered state employees from using confidential government information to profit from prediction market trades or to help others do so. State officials said the order was intended to address concerns that public servants could misuse nonpublic information on emerging trading platforms and to reinforce public trust as prediction markets continue to expand.

“Kalshi has chosen to ignore New York’s gaming laws, which exist to protect consumers, prevent problematic gambling, deliver funding for critical public services, and ensure that every company plays by the same rules,” Hochul said in a statement. “This choice has consequences, and working closely with Attorney General James, New York is taking action to stop this illegal behavior and bring Kalshi into compliance, because no company is above the law.”

James said the company cannot avoid New York gambling laws simply by describing its products as prediction markets.

“New York’s gambling laws protect children from underage betting and help combat gambling addiction,” James said. “No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple. By ignoring our laws, Kalshi is running an illegal operation and harming New Yorkers in the process. We are taking them to court to uphold our laws and protect New Yorkers.”

New York argues Kalshi is operating an unlicensed gambling business

According to the verified petition, Kalshi launched its prediction market platform in 2021 before expanding into sports markets in January 2025. The company promoted those offerings as “legal sports markets, accessible to Americans in all 50 states.”

New York argues those contracts amount to unlawful gambling because customers risk money on future contingent events outside their control while Kalshi does not hold a state gaming license.

The petition also claims Kalshi has become a multibillion-dollar business while operating outside New York’s gambling regulatory framework.

“Respondent has reported a $22 billion valuation of its gambling business and an annualized transaction volume of $178 billion,” the petition states, adding that the company seeks to avoid “the legal and financial consequences of New York’s close regulation of gambling by offering what is quintessentially wagering under the guise of ‘event contracts’ on a ‘prediction market.'”

The complaint alleges Kalshi has violated multiple provisions of New York law, including constitutional restrictions on unauthorized gambling, criminal gambling statutes, sports wagering laws and the federal Wire Act. State lawyers are asking the court to permanently block the company from operating in New York while also ordering restitution, disgorgement, an accounting of customer activity and statutory penalties.

In a memorandum supporting a temporary restraining order, the attorney general’s office argued that immediate court intervention is necessary because Kalshi allegedly continues operating despite earlier enforcement efforts. The filing says the company has engaged in “repeated and persistent illegality” in violation of Executive Law § 63(12) and seeks both preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.

New York says Kalshi ignored regulators and continues breaking state law

The state also submitted an emergency affirmation from Investor Protection Bureau Chief Shamiso Maswoswe, seen by ReadWrite, who argued New Yorkers continue to face harm while Kalshi remains available.

“I submit this affirmation of emergency because Respondent is presently violating the laws of this State,” Maswoswe wrote, noting that the New York State Gaming Commission ordered Kalshi to cease operations in October 2025 but that “each day these unlicensed and underregulated entities are operating within and from New York subjects New Yorkers to actual harm.”

Maswoswe also alleged that Kalshi ignored the Gaming Commission’s cease-and-desist order by suing the regulator and continuing to operate after a federal judge denied its request for a preliminary injunction in July.

“Respondent continues to operate its gambling platform from New York,” the affirmation states.

The proposed temporary restraining order would immediately prohibit Kalshi from offering contracts tied to sports, elections, culture and other events without state licenses. It would also prevent wagering by people under 21 and bar the company from advertising or promoting its platform while the litigation moves forward. The state is additionally seeking restitution, disgorgement, penalties and a detailed accounting of customer wagers and losses.

Court filings show New York has requested assignment to the Commercial Division and estimates the value of the requested accounting and related monetary relief at roughly $36 billion, in addition to broad injunctive relief and statutory penalties.

Lawsuit expands New York’s broader crackdown on prediction markets

The lawsuit comes as New York continues increasing oversight of prediction markets and related financial platforms. Hochul’s April executive order prohibited covered state officers and employees from using confidential government information to profit from prediction market trades, warning that newer trading platforms create opportunities for insider activity that existing ethics rules must address.

When announcing that order, Hochul said, “Getting rich by betting on inside information is corruption, plain and simple,” adding that the state’s actions were intended to ensure public employees serve the public rather than pursue personal financial gain. Her administration also cited growing public scrutiny of prediction markets and said unlicensed platforms warrant closer regulatory attention.

At the same time, state Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr. has proposed legislation that would establish a regulated framework for prediction markets in New York rather than leaving the activity unlicensed or offshore.

Friday’s lawsuit represents New York’s most aggressive challenge yet against Kalshi. Along with seeking to halt the company’s operations in the state, the attorney general’s office is asking the court to require Kalshi to surrender its alleged illegal gains, compensate affected consumers and pay significant civil penalties. Kalshi had not responded in the materials provided with the lawsuit to the allegations filed Friday.

Featured image: Marc A. Hermann / MTA / CC BY 2.0 / Canva / Kalshi

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DraftKings is facing a proposed nationwide class action accusing the company of running an illegal online sports betting business through its DraftKings Predictions platform in states where traditional online sportsbooks are still prohibited.

The complaint, filed July 28 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and reviewed by ReadWrite, names DraftKings Inc. and subsidiary GUS III LLC, which operates as DraftKings Predictions. Plaintiffs argue the company presented sports wagers as federally regulated event contracts to sidestep state gambling laws while leading customers to believe the product was legally distinct from conventional sportsbooks.

California resident Michael Chan brought the lawsuit on behalf of himself and a proposed class of consumers who allegedly lost money using DraftKings Predictions. According to the complaint, Chan registered for the platform while in California and “was not informed by DraftKings that Predictions is an unlicensed sportsbook when he wagered and lost money on the app.”

The filing argues DraftKings relies on its established sportsbook brand, technology and customer base to market what plaintiffs describe as the functional equivalent of sports betting in states that have not approved online sportsbooks.

“DraftKings has found another way in: it deploys Predictions to evade those states’ gambling laws, regulations, and prohibitions, and sells consumers sports bets that are functionally identical to the wagers in its regulated sportsbook,” the complaint states.

Plaintiffs seek to represent consumers from Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, New Mexico, South Carolina and Texas. The lawsuit says thousands of consumers may qualify, with alleged damages exceeding $5 million under the Class Action Fairness Act.

DraftKings Prediction strategy faces test with class action lawsuit

A major part of the complaint relies on statements attributed to DraftKings executives during earnings calls and investor presentations. It repeatedly references Chief Executive Officer Jason Robins, including his comment that “customers don’t really even understand the difference” between DraftKings Sportsbook and DraftKings Predictions. The filing also quotes Robins saying the products “serve the same customers in the same live moments and leverage shared underlying infrastructure.”

Plaintiffs contend those remarks support their claim that Predictions extends DraftKings’ sportsbook into markets where licensed online betting remains unavailable. The complaint also cites Robins’ statement that “Some of the biggest states in the country like California, Texas, Florida, we were not present in with [online sports betting], and we have Predictions there now.”

DraftKings launched the standalone DraftKings Predictions app across 38 states in late 2025 under Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight, describing it as a platform for trading event contracts rather than placing sportsbook wagers. The company later announced plans to expand by launching a market-making business and, in May 2026, advanced its strategy after Railbird Exchange submitted sports event contract certifications to the CFTC, including templates resembling moneyline, point-spread and player performance markets.

The complaint says DraftKings has been unjustly enriched through an unlicensed sportsbook and, for California consumers, violated the state’s Unfair Competition Law. Plaintiffs seek restitution, disgorgement, attorneys’ fees, costs and recovery of alleged wagering losses. DraftKings had not responded to the allegations at the time the lawsuit was filed.

Featured image: DraftKings

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