World Lottery Association urges prediction markets be regulated as sports betting
The World Lottery Association has called for prediction markets to be regulated under the same framework as sports betting, warning that unregulated platforms pose risks to sports integrity, consumer protection, and fair competition. The trade group intensified its criticism June 7, having first issued the call in a June 1 report. The association did not specify which regulators it is targeting or detail its preferred implementation of sports-betting-style rules. The intervention adds a global lottery-industry voice to the escalating U.S. regulatory and legislative fight over whether federally overseen event-contract platforms should face state-level gambling restrictions.
Lottery operators in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota now gain political cover to lobby state legislatures for copycat bans, amplifying the pressure that forced Kalshi into federal preemption lawsuits in Minnesota and New Mexico.
Brings the lottery industry into the anti-prediction-markets coalition alongside the NCAA, major sports leagues, and now UNITE HERE, adding a global trade body to the state-level enforcement push led by New Mexico's Torrez and state AGs in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.