Casinos, Tribes, and Unions Urge Senate to Ban Sports Betting From the Clarity Act
A coalition of greater than 50 gaming associations, tribal governments, and labor unions submitted a letter to the Senate on June 16, demanding that the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act embody express language banning prediction markets from providing sports activities and casino-style occasion contracts. This is a direct shot at platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi which have constructed substantial real-money occasion contract companies underneath CFTC oversight.
Gaming teams urge Senate to ban sports activities prediction markets in crypto invoice
The American Gaming Association, Indian Gaming Association, and Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers despatched a letter to the Senate calling for language in the Clarity Act that may explicitly… pic.twitter.com/TKcgGM4J4E
— NewsTongue (@NewsTongueX) June 17, 2026
Signatories embody the American Gaming Association (AGA), the Indian Gaming Association (IGA), and UNITE HERE, which represents 300,000 lodge, gaming, and food-service employees throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The letter argues that prediction market platforms have engineered the largest growth of playing in U.S. historical past over the previous 18 months with out state authorization, legislative approval, or significant client protections.
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Coalition’s Core Argument: CFTC Was Never Built to Police Gambling
The coalition’s authorized framing is particular and value unpacking. The teams will not be merely arguing that sports activities betting is a foul coverage. According to the coalition, the CFTC structurally lacks the authority and institutional infrastructure to regulate it. “Sports betting falls outdoors the CFTC’s remit and can’t be supplied by means of prediction market platforms,” the letter states.
The CFTC was established to oversee commodities and derivatives markets, not to police wagering integrity, underage entry, or problem-gambling safeguards – none of which it has enforcement historical past on.
AGA President Bill Miller has beforehand acknowledged that gaming integrity frameworks are “being undermined by so-called ‘prediction markets’ who’re invading state, native, and tribal authorities.”
UNITE HERE’s president, Gwen Mills, framed it as an employment menace: employees’ livelihoods are “now threatened by prediction markets conducting unlawful sports activities betting in violation of Tribal sovereignty and state legal guidelines.”
The IGA’s concern runs deeper nonetheless, that the Clarity Act, with out express carve-outs, might functionally back-door legalize nationwide sports activities betting by routing it by means of CFTC-registered platforms, bypassing the tribal-state compact system that at the moment governs the place and how wagering is obtainable.
The American Gaming Association has additionally claimed states have misplaced roughly $1 billion in tax income to prediction markets since the begin of 2025, although prediction market operators dispute that determine.
Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado put the jurisdictional argument plainly: “The CFTC has actually no expertise in regulating sports activities betting. Even worse, CFTC has failed to use the authority it does have to shield sports activities bettors from insider buying and selling, market manipulation, predatory promoting, and monetary instability.”
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Clarity Act Legislative Battlefield: Three Obstacles, Nine Days, One Threshold
The gaming coalition’s letter lands on a invoice already underneath structural pressure. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15–9 on May 18, a significant vote depend however one that doesn’t resolve the three distinct obstacles nonetheless blocking ground passage.
An unresolved ethics battle embedded in the invoice’s language, two competing committee texts that should be merged, and a 60-vote cloture threshold that calls for bipartisan buy-in effectively past what the committee vote demonstrated.
With simply 9 working days earlier than the July 4 recess, Senate drafters face a compressed timeline to determine whether or not to fold the gaming coalition’s anti-sports-betting language instantly into the Clarity Act textual content or depart it to the separate Schiff-Curtis invoice. S
Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis launched the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act (S.4160) in March 2026, which might amend the Commodity Exchange Act to explicitly bar CFTC-registered entities from itemizing contracts tied to any sporting occasion or athletic competitors, or providing casino-style merchandise like poker or blackjack. That invoice preserves state and tribal gaming jurisdiction as the governing framework, precisely what the IGA and AGA need codified.
The quick regulatory set off for this lobbying push was the CFTC’s early June 2026 rulemaking, which superior a framework formally allowing sure sports activities occasion contracts on prediction markets. Banning markets on accidents, officiating calls, high-school athletics, and pure-chance video games, however leaving skill-influenced occasion contracts probably open.
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