BetMGM CEO decries prediction markets in earnings call, retreats from non-iGaming states
BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt voiced frustration with prediction markets during a third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. Greenblatt responded with an audible sigh when asked about the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's apparent ban on iGaming products for prediction markets. The MGM Resorts and Entain joint venture is now retreating from states without iGaming and leaning into higher-value, higher-staking players. The strategic shift reflects pressure from the growing prediction-markets sector.
Greenblatt's public complaint signals that regulated sportsbooks now view CFTC-registered prediction markets as direct revenue threats, not niche experiments. BetMGM's retreat from non-iGaming states shows one major bookmaker already ceding ground rather than competing head-to-head with event-contract platforms that offer similar wagers under federal rules.
That pressure gives the CFTC's pending swap-rule proposal real commercial stakes: if event contracts keep their lighter framework, more sportsbook operators may fold market share rather than absorb the cost of dual-track state and federal competition. MGM's move also validates the prediction-markets model with institutional investors who previously dismissed it as marginal. The first sportsbook to publicly blame prediction markets for strategic pullback has handed event-contract platforms a marketing asset they will spend heavily to exploit.
Joins the NFL and multiple state attorneys general in pressing the federal system on prediction-market classification, as the CFTC's pending swap-rule proposal and state courts race on parallel tracks that platforms must now survive simultaneously.