Hard to predict
Prediction market wins one court case, faces another
Kalshi scores a win over the CFTC – or does it?
In +More: bet365 gets a slap, Wynn settles, Thai hopes.
Missouri gets its ballot question as court throws out petition challenge.
A rare W for Star Entertainment.
I needed money 'cause I had none.
Kalshi vs. the CFTC
We (almost) did it: Prediction markets provider Kalshi will be sweating on a court hearing set for Thursday, September 12, over whether the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s prohibition on election betting will stand.
A federal judge last week struck down the CFTC’s order to stop Kalshi from offering markets on the presidential election.
The provider hailed the court finding as a watershed moment and said on its website: “We did it! US election markets are coming to Kalshi.”
Election markets are now legal in the US “for the first time in 100 years,” Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s co-founder and CEO, posted on X.
Not so fast: However, the CFTC subsequently filed an emergency motion to stop Kalshi from offering any markets for at least 14 days. Kalshi said the motion was “meritless,” adding that any granting would cause the company "irreparable harm.”
Arguing that any delay would “assuredly” be parlayed into “another, then another, until it is too late,” the company said it would be “devastating” if the CTFC was successful.
But the CFTC complained that without seeing the rationale behind Judge Jia Cobb’s one-page ruling it meant the agency couldn’t figure out whether to appeal.
The judge has yet to say when her opinion would be published.
History lesson: Last year the CFTC forbade Kalshi from listing contracts on which party would control each house of Congress after the election. Such contracts, the agency said, would amount to unlawful gaming and would be “contrary to the public interest.”
Crypto-based prediction market Polymarket, which operates into the US from offshore, has made something of a splash in this year’s election cycle.
Election guru Natre Silver joined Polymarket in July as an advisor.
As it stands, Polymarket doesn’t charge any form of fee for trading on the platform.
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+More
Déjà vu: bet365 has been fined $33k by the New Jersey regulator for taking bets on events where the outcome was already known. In one instance, the company accepted wagers on an MMA match that had already been held a week earlier and was being shown on tape.
The Betting and Gaming Council, Britain’s top industry lobby group, has a new chief executive. Grainne Hurst has moved from Entain after more than a decade at the operator, holding roles such as group corporate affairs director.
Search me: Google is updating its gambling advertising policies in Germany to force all gambling advertisers to be licensed by the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder, the country’s regulator. The update, which enters force on September 25, 2024, will bar any gambling promotions from operators and brokers from advertising without regulatory approval.
The Danish Gambling Authority successfully applied to block 79 websites offering illegal gambling to Danes. The regulator has shut down 162 websites so far this year, the highest number recorded in the country.
Wynn Resorts has settled a decade-long lawsuit with the Department of Justice related to unlicensed money transfers to gamblers at Wynn Las Vegas and will pay a forfeiture of funds of $130m.
Wynn said in a filing to the SEC that the case did not amount to money laundering.
Thai me a river: Thailand’s new prime minister is expected to announce the development of up to seven entertainment complexes featuring casinos during a policy statement to parliament later this week, according to a report in The Nation.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra plans to continue the push for casino legalization in the country with a large-scale model similar to Singapore’s legislation.
Got your back: This follows a public consultation in which 80% of respondents backed the creation of a new entertainment mega-complex with venues.
Deputy finance minister Julapun Amornvivat said feedback from the public hearing would be worked into the plans under which limited or public limited companies would be able to apply for 30-year licenses from the Entertainment Complex Policy Committee.
Brazil: The CEO of operator Esportes da Sorte has claimed he is innocent of charges of money laundering following his arrest last week. Darwin Henrique da Silva Filho was detained on allegations of AML infractions and illegal gambling.
Belgium’s recent raising of the gambling age to 21 doesn’t include the country’s lottery and scratch cards, much to the chagrin of one industry association. It is “high time” that lawmakers fix the “gap in the legislation,” said Tom de Clercq, president of the Belgian Association of Gaming Operators.
Missouri ballot
The kid stays in the picture: Missourians will get their say on whether to allow regulated sports betting within the state after a lawsuit that challenged the result of the recent petition effort was rejected by the Cole County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit filed by a pair of political consultants claimed that inaccurate verification methods had been used in the certification process.
Not enough: But in ruling in favor of Missouri Secretary of State John Ashcroft, Judge Daniel Green said the plaintiffs had “not offered sufficient justification or evidence” to call the certification of the petition into question.
Missouri will now finalize the details of the ballot question today, Tuesday.
Winning the debate: A spokesperson for the Winning for Missouri Education, the lobby group funded in part by a total of over $10m in donations from both DraftKings and FanDuel, said the ruling was a “big victory” for Missourians.
While the identity of the plaintiffs is known – political consultants Jacqueline Wood and Blake Lawrence – the ultimate architects of the legal complaints remain murky.
However, LegalSportsReport did point out that the team of attorneys who argued the case in court was led by Marc Ellinger.
He is the chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association and has previously represented the Missouri Gaming Association.
As LSR noted, the association remained quiet during the sports-betting ballot initiative and lawsuit.
Ohio iCasino
Kick da bucket: A long-shot iCasino bill has been proposed in the Ohio state Senate for this year’s lame-duck session. As laid out by state Senator Niraj Antani, each of Ohio’s 11 casinos would be entitled to a license.
However, passage for the measure is considered unlikely and if the measure is not discussed it would lose its sponsor for 2025.
A recent study commission on the future of online gambling in Ohio came to no specific recommendations with regard to iCasino, iLottery or OSB reform.
Whale watching
Sing it back: A Singaporean whale must pay Star Entertainment Queensland more than A$38m ($25.4m) after racking up tens of millions of dollars in gambling debt. Brisbane’s Supreme Court has ordered Yew Choy Wong to also pay Star's costs and interest dating back to September 2018.
Dr Wong was invited to the Star Gold Coast's casino in 2018 where he blew A$47.3m in five days. He left the country without settling his debts, prompting the casino to use a cheque he had previously signed to pay the amount.
However, Dr Wong told his bank to “stop payment on any cheques from The Star,” causing it to bounce.
Play your cards right: In his defense, Dr Wong said a verbal agreement had been made with the casino not to settle after objecting to the way his baccarat cards were dealt. He claims the casino’s president of international marketing made a verbal offer of a A$4.5m rebate to keep him gambling.
Bosses at the casino denied any promise was made.
The court found that with no evidence presented by Dr Wong he was liable for the full amount, including costs of nearly A$6k a day interest.
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Calendar
Sep 10-13: European Conference on Gambling Studies, Rome
Sep 24-26: SBC Player Protection Summit, Lisbon
Oct 7-10, G2E, Las Vegas
Nov 5: Gaming in Germany, Berlin
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