Gaming industry groups lobby Senate to ban sports prediction markets in crypto bill
US gaming industry groups lobbied Congress to ban sports and casino-style prediction markets in pending cryptocurrency market-structure legislation, according to a June 17 Semafor report cited by The Block and DeFi Rate. The push targets a Senate crypto bill that would establish federal digital-asset regulation. Gaming groups and employee unions are seeking restrictions on sports event contract trading, adding a new opponent to a prediction-market sector that has seen platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket expand into sports contracts. The lobbying effort brings commercial and tribal gaming interests into the fight over how prediction markets intersect with federal crypto policy. The specific organizations involved and the provisions they seek were not detailed.
Kalshi and Polymarket must now fight a third front — congressional riders — while already defending against state attorneys general and the CFTC's own contract restrictions. Any ban folded into crypto legislation would override the federal preemption arguments they are using in Minnesota, Rhode Island, and New Mexico.
The gaming coalition joins a growing list of CFTC and state-level challengers to prediction-market expansion, alongside Gensler's amicus brief in Ohio, the agency's preemption lawsuit in Minnesota, and its new war-contract rulemaking — all pressing platforms on separate regulatory fronts.