Las Vegas Sun90%
Nevada lawmakers introduce federal legislation to shut down sports betting loophole 72%
By Las Vegas Sun Staff54%
7/23/2026, 7:00:00 PM
Keywords: Aggregate, Home Aggregate, Sports Betting, Gaming, Mark Amodei, Steven Horsford, Legislature, Government
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Biased Writer Voice, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 26.2% saturation with 251 hits. Analysis detected 2,190 faulty-reasoning hits from 959 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 64.5% and a BS Rank of 72% (6,173 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 71.80% of the article peer group.
Members of Nevada’s congressional delegation are placing a new bet of their own: that Congress can shut down what they call a federal loophole that allows sports betting to masquerade as Wall Street-style trading.
U.S.
Reps.
Steven Horsford, D-Nev., and Mark Amodei, R-Nev., on Thursday introduced the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act, a bipartisan bill that would bar federally regulated trading platforms from offering sports betting and casino-style gambling under the label of financial products.
The bill has a companion version in the Senate, introduced in March by Sens.
Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and John Curtis, R-Utah, with Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., joining as a co-sponsor.
The legislation would make clear that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees legitimate financial markets, not sportsbook-style wagering or casino games, according to a news release from Horsford’s office.
Backers say it would close a loophole that lets companies sidestep the licensing requirements, consumer protections, tax obligations and regulatory oversight required of licensed gaming operators.
“This is about protecting jobs, protecting consumers and protecting the integrity of our gaming industry,” Horsford said in a statement.
“Nevada has always been the gold standard for gaming regulations.
These companies are exploiting a federal loophole that allows them to effectively sidestep state oversight that every other legal sportsbook must follow.
They’ve already cost states over $1 billion in lost gaming tax revenue — money that should have gone toward funding schools, roads and critical programs.”
The fight centers on companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket, which offer “event contracts” allowing users to buy and sell “yes” or “no” positions on the outcome of sporting events, with prices meant to reflect the market’s estimated odds of a given result.
While the broader second Trump administration has largely embraced and eased the regulatory environment for prediction markets — ending federal probes and backing platforms like Polymarket — the intersection of family ties and federal policy has drawn sharp scrutiny.
Donald Trump Jr. serves as an adviser to Kalshi and is both an investor and adviser to Polymarket via his firm 1789 Capital.
Despite the White House’s generally favorable regulatory posture and pro-business stance on decentralized financial products, the administration has faced internal friction and ethics questions following incidents like insider-trading probes into government staffers wagering on public speeches.
Prediction-market products, including Kalshi’s sports-related contracts, have been treated as illegal in Nevada by state authorities and the courts, which have sided with regulators who argue the contracts amount to unlicensed sports betting.
Amodei said gaming regulation has traditionally belonged to states and tribes.
“This bipartisan bill closes a federal loophole that allows sports betting to masquerade as financial trading and ensures legitimate event contracts remain under the (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) jurisdiction,” he said.
The dispute has already reshaped betting patterns in the state.
Nevada sportsbooks took in about $133.8 million in wagers on Super Bowl 60 in February, the state’s lowest Super Bowl handle in a decade.
Over the same period, users on Kalshi traded more than $1 billion in Super Bowl-related contracts, a spike the company described as a 2,700% jump from the previous year.
At a Nevada Gaming Commission meeting in November, MGM Resorts International CEO Bill Hornbuckle did not mince words about how he views the contracts: “It is without a doubt sports betting, full stop.”
“Sports prediction contracts are sports bets — just with a different name,” Schiff said in a statement.
“And yet, these contracts have been offered in all 50 states in clear violation of state and federal law.
Rather than enforce the law, the (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) is greenlighting these markets and even promoting their growth.”
Curtis, framing the issue around consumer protection, said the bill would keep speculative financial products out of spaces reserved for state-regulated gambling.
“Too many young people in Utah are getting exposed to addictive sports betting and casino-style gaming contracts that belong under state control, not under federal regulators,” he said.
The bill also drew support from the gaming industry and organized labor.
American Gaming Association President and CEO Bill Miller called it a bipartisan, bicameral effort to “protect consumers, uphold state and tribal authority on regulating gaming, and stop so-called ‘prediction markets’ from offering backdoor sports betting that is siphoning billions of dollars in tax revenue from local communities across America.”
Gwen Mills, president of UNITE HERE hospitality union, said the stakes extend to more than 100,000 union members working in tribal and commercial casinos nationwide, while Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said prediction markets threaten the jobs of 60,000 union members employed at casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, in downtown Las Vegas and in Reno.
The bill would prohibit sports and casino-style event contracts on federally registered exchanges, drawing a clear line between gambling and hedging.
A wager on the Super Bowl, the release states, does not become a financial product simply because it is offered through a trading app.
At the same time, the bill would preserve bona fide hedging instruments — weather, economic and similar contracts — under Commodity Futures Trading Commission jurisdiction.
The news release cites the example of a Los Angeles ice cream shop owner who recently used weather contracts to offset lost sales on cold days, covering nearly half his monthly rent, as the kind of legitimate hedging the bill would leave untouched.
The legislation also includes a rule of construction affirming that nothing in federal law preempts state or tribal authority over gaming, leaving states and tribes free to set and enforce their own gaming policies.
And by resolving the jurisdictional question directly in statute, backers say Congress can avoid years of costly Commodity Futures Trading Commission rulemaking and the litigation that would likely follow.
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