Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026 | 2 a.m.
Editor’s note: This article is translated into English.
Nevada’s political and gaming establishments are taking steps to take down a Trump-era sports betting rival that just had a big hit in the Super Bowl.
This year’s Super Bowl 60 rematch between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots drew a peak audience of about 137.8 million viewers, the highest in American television history, according to the NFL and Nielsen.
But that national obsession wasn’t reflected at Nevada’s betting windows: Bookmakers took in about $133.8 million in bets on the game, the state’s lowest figure in about a decade.
At the same time, users of the Kalshi prediction market traded more than $1 trillion in Super Bowl-related contracts, an increase its CEO called a 2,700% increase over last year.
Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket allow users to buy and sell “yes” or “no” contracts on future events, with prices reflecting the market’s estimate of the probabilities. Someone could buy a “yes” contract at 60 cents for a Seahawks win, implying a 60% chance that Seattle wins, and receive $1 if the team wins, making a 40 cent profit per contract. Supporters of this practice claim that it turns news and odds into a financial instrument, with prices continually updated as information and opinions change, and maintain that these markets are tools for aggregating information and not for betting.
“If we’re gambling, then I think you’re basically calling the entire financial market gambling,” Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour told Axios last year.
That opinion is not universal, especially in Nevada.
A state judge has temporarily barred Polymarket from offering event-based contracts in Nevada, and the Gaming Control Board and attorney general are pursuing civil action against Kalshi over its sports markets, treating them as unlicensed gambling.
MGM Resorts International CEO Bill Hornbuckle was blunt at a November meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission: “Without a doubt, this is sports betting, period,” he said, referring to sports prediction markets.
Gaming industry associations have been equally forthright. At last year’s Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, American Gaming Association CEO Bill Miller stated: “The AGA and our members are mobilizing on all fronts. They are threatening the communities we serve, the customers and consumers we protect, and the standards we uphold.”
Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, whose district includes the Las Vegas Strip, is now trying to shut down sports prediction markets at the federal level. On Tuesday he introduced the Sports Integrity and Fair Markets Act, a bill that would ban sports prediction markets, effectively reducing the vast majority of their current trading volume.
“If you can tell me that going to the prediction market to say how many touchdowns someone is going to get is not a bet, I don’t see the logic of that,” Titus said in an interview.
The Nevada Resort Association argues in a court brief that the products are functionally identical to sports betting that pays state taxes and follows strict Nevada rules.
Titus has presented his bill as a consumer protection measure and a defense of Nevada’s tax base. He said that if a user believes a market has been improperly settled, “there is no gaming control board,” like in Nevada, that can be turned to, and that filing a complaint with the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) means dealing with an agency that is not prepared for disputes.
That concern isn’t theoretical: For this year’s Super Bowl, both Kalshi and Polymarket priced contracts on whether singer Cardi B would perform during Bad Bunny’s halftime show, and after she appeared on stage, Polymarket initially ruled “yes” (although this was the subject of controversy), while Kalshi abstained, clearing the market at its most recent value. Kalshi’s decision has already led to a complaint to the trade commission, with analyst Dustin Gouker noting: “They don’t have a ton of regulators ready to deal with customer complaints.”
Titus is equally explicit about what is at stake for Nevada. He warned that prediction markets don’t generate “any kind of tax revenue, so states will lose out in that regard. And that revenue goes to fund things that are needed, like education and social services. So, betting houses will lose business, which means losing workers.”
On the other hand, Nevada’s gaming taxes and related revenues are among the largest contributors to the state’s general fund, and casinos support tens of billions of dollars in annual economic activity.
Daniel Wallach, founder of sports betting law firm Wallach Legal, said: “Without sports, there are no prediction markets other than very minor levels of activity. If you remove sporting events, you remove the heart and most of your business in terms of valuation.”
For now, though, prediction markets are thriving outside of Nevada. Gouker said the product is especially attractive in states that don’t offer legal sports betting, and that friction in Nevada’s online sports betting system makes it easier for some people to turn to prediction apps. Instead of having to physically go to a betting shop, “you can sit on your couch and fund your (Kalshi) account quite easily,” he said.
And despite warnings from trade groups, DraftKings and FanDuel have announced their own prediction products.
In Washington, prediction markets have momentum that Nevada can’t ignore. Under President Joe Biden, the CFTC had attempted to clamp down on event contracts, including a lawsuit against Kalshi over his plans to quote markets on the U.S. election, but Kalshi won that case, paving the way for election betting under federal derivatives law.
After President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, Kalshi quickly submitted a notice to the commission to begin trading sports event markets, and last month the CFTC formally withdrew a proposed rule that would have banned sports-related event contracts entirely.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig recently said on a Bloomberg podcast that “we create rules and regulations around those markets to ensure their integrity, their resiliency, their dynamism, and that they have guardrails and investor protections.”
However, Wallach said Selig is less passive than he appears, believing he is “full speed ahead” with sporting event contracts, even though during his confirmation hearings he said he would leave the decision on this issue to the courts.
The platforms also have close friends of the president.
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is listed as an advisor to both Polymarket and Kalshi, while Trump Media & Technology Group is exploring the possibility of creating its own prediction market on the Truth Social platform.
On Thursday, Selig announced the creation of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, whose members include Mansour and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan.
Wallach doesn’t think Titus’ legislation will make it through the current Congress because of the Trump family’s connections to the industry, but he thinks it could still influence the debate.
“The message that is being conveyed to Congress is that these types of markets should not be legalized,” he said. “Whether or not its ban passes is probably less important than the impact it will have as part of the debate in the future.”
That debate is now playing out in courts across the country. The Dodd Frank Act empowered the CFTC to reject contracts considered gambling. Prediction markets claim that their services should not be considered gambling. So far, however, judges have been reluctant to interpret the post-crisis Wall Street reform law as a green light for nationwide sports betting.
“Courts have always invoked a strong presumption against prevalence, and to overcome that presumption, you need to have clear, overt language,” Wallach said. “At best, the arguments put forward by prediction market platforms are based on ambiguities.”
In state cases, the approach is simpler: Are sports prediction markets simply bets by another name and violate existing prohibitions on unlicensed betting?
[email protected] / 702-990-8923 / @Kyle_Chouinard
date: 2026-02-15 15:03:00
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