Throwing in the towel
Futures regulator calls off the prediction market dogs
CFTC ducks Kalshi fight; NBA seeks prediction clarity.
Florida anti-sweepstakes bills fizzle out; Playstudios plots sweeps move.
Sports integrity organization sees ‘welcome’ fall in table tennis alerts.
Wiggin says the UK has reached a regulatory steady state.
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Ducking the fight
Bravely turned and ran away: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) late Monday voluntarily pulled its appeal in federal court in a case against prediction-market provider Kalshi.
The withdrawal of the appeal confirms Kalshi’s right to offer event contracts on the 2024 US presidential election.
In September, the DC District Court said Kalshi could allow trading on the outcome of the vote, in a ruling which now stands.
Predictable: Around the same time as the appeal being withdrawn, the CFTC announced staff had been placed on “administrative leave” for alleged violations of laws, ethics rules and professional conduct codes.
The agency has not clarified how many employees are affected or whether its operations are impacted, fueling speculation about deeper turmoil.
Going nowhere: “Election markets are here to stay,” declared Kalshi co-founder Tarek Mansour. “Prediction markets have been banned, censored, limited and pushed out for decades. This win solidifies their right to exist and thrive. It really took a village.”
Preach: He thanked “everyone who was part of this, who stuck with us through the hard times, who traded our markets since early days, who sent countless comment letters and who fought relentlessly on the frontline alongside Kalshi.”
No show: The CFTC abruptly cancelled a hotly anticipated roundtable on its agenda for regulating prediction markets with no further notice given. In the months prior, traditional casino names, tribes and other sector players had voiced their objections to prediction markets with the CFTC.
Having sued states for the right to offer sports events contracts as a federally regulated entity, Kalshi has racked up several wins in court.
Critics say prediction markets skirt state gambling laws and pay no local taxes despite offering what many see as de facto sports betting.
Full court press
He got game: Meanwhile, the National Basketball Association (NBA) became the latest major body to chime in, adding its calls to limit sports prediction markets, having cited integrity concerns surrounding the likes of Kalshi and Crypto.com.
NBA bosses wrote to the CFTC to link spot-fixing to an increase in prop bets and performance-based markets.
The NBA requested a direct meeting with the CFTC and joins Major League Baseball, which made a similar call for an “integrity framework” in March.
No time like the present: Elsewhere, Sporttrade has sought CFTC approval to offer sports event contracts in five licensed US states.
The operator said authorization is critical to avoid “irreparable harm,” because competitors such as Kalshi operate nationwide.
Speaking to Earnings+More about the move, CEO Alex Kane said if Sporttrade “didn’t state our intent, we risked having everything just pass us by as we sat on the side of the road.”
Sporttrade’s application process requires CFTC registration, National Futures Association membership and compliance reviews before approval.
Earlier this year, Kane weighed in on the CFTC’s likelihood of pushback when Kalshi began offering sports events contracts.
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The Philippine’s gambling regulator PAGCOR has expanded its supervisory perimeter to include B2B service providers for the first time. A memo issued April 30 confirms a new framework is coming to accredit payment processors, game suppliers and other third-party vendors.
The Netherlands’ Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) has warned Chestoption Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada to stop running its unlicensed Vave, Vave Luck and 65Avev55 sites or face a fine of up to €840,000. The KSA said it confirmed access to the sites by creating an account and placing bets, with no blocking measures in place.
Prague can set its own gambling agenda, free from national government interference, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic has ruled.
Desert understanding: The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement and the United Arab Emirates General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority have signed a memorandum of understanding on international collaboration. The agreement will help strengthen New Jersey’s international economy and will prioritize responsible gaming, said Gov. Phil Murphy.
Commercial
Mindway AI has agreed a strategic partnership with BetComply to enhance its responsible gaming functions. BetComply will provide Mindway with advice on business strategies and its product roadmap.
Xpoint has appointed Eric Lamendola as head of product and Sidharth Singh as senior product manager. Lamendola most recently worked as VP of products at software development company Cint. Singh joins the company after a stint as technical product manager at SciPlay.
Florida move falls flat
I’m only sweepin’: Legislation to ban sweepstakes-style games in Florida has suffered death via committee. Florida Senate Bill 1404 and House Bill 1467, which sought to criminalize free-to-play digital promotions and expand government control over online gaming, failed to advance before the 2025 session adjourned.
The Social and Promotional Games Association (SPGA), which represents sweepstakes operators, said lawmakers “rejected anti-innovation, anti-business efforts” that threatened consumer choice and economic activity.
“This is a huge win for economic freedom and digital innovation,” said an SPGA spokesperson, warning that while Governor Ron DeSantis could revive the bills in an extended session, appetite for such measures appears low.
Getting the ban back together: Meanwhile, the Louisiana Senate has unanimously approved the bill to ban unregulated sweepstakes games. SB 181 now heads to the House and would go into effect in August were it to be signed into law.
It implements fines of up to $100,000 per occurrence for sweeps operators and prison terms of up to five years.
In New York, the Assembly Committee on Racing and Wagering passed a bill on Wednesday to ban online sweepstakes following the passage of a companion bill in the Senate in March.
Anti-social
Impact point: On his company’s Q1 call yesterday, Playstudios CEO Andrew Pascal said that, alongside a broader market weakness in social casino, the market was also being impacted by the “rising popularity” of sweepstakes-style offerings.
He said sweeps were “capturing increasing mind share and spend from players.”
In response, Pascal said Playstudios was “hard at work on the development of a sweepstakes solution.”
Fun, fun, fun: Noting that compliance had been a “central focus of the company’s development efforts. He said Playstudios was “committed to building the most compliant and transparent promotional mechanic in the industry.”
“Our vision is to reclaim sweepstakes for what it was intended to be: a fun, engaging and trusted promotional incentive that will drive more consumption across our social casino portfolio,” he added.
He noted the launch would be “measured” and consist of “several jurisdictions initially.”
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Integrity numbers
Ping: The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has reported 63 cases of suspicious betting in the first quarter, which is two alerts less than in the prior-year period but represents a sequential increase of 11.
The breakdown for the incidents shows there were alerts across six sports and 23 countries.
Football and tennis accounted for 40 of the Q125 incidents, a 14% increase on Q424.
Europe and North America made up 51% of the total reported, a decrease of 29% compared to Q424.
Pong: Table tennis saw a notable reduction in alerts from 21 reported in Q424 to nine in Q125, representing a 57% QoQ decline. Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said the fall in table tennis alerts was “welcome.”
He added that the IBIA has taken “increased precautions regarding this sport” and agreed a number of new integrity partnerships and protocols in Q1 with the aim of detecting and sanctioning corrupt betting activity.
UK’s settled state
Calmer waters: Speaking to Ivor Jones, leisure analyst at Peel Hunt, Stephen Ketteley, partner at Wiggin and gambling regulatory and legal expert, suggested the period of regulatory upheavals in the UK was finally coming to an end with something of a settled state now achievable.
He noted how the UK has come to be seen as a bellwether for how regulatory regimes may develop in other jurisdictions.
Ratchet: This is because, in part, the UK has seen “tighter and tighter regulations” imposed within the past five years or more.
Loose fit: But this period of tightening is now finally coming to an end, he argued, with the regulatory backdrop now “somewhat loosened in the last couple of years, as the industry and the regulator have sought to find a balance between consumer protection and consumer freedom.”
“The challenge in the next few years is [for the industry] to properly prepare itself to articulate why its compliance framework is effective in meeting the regulatory objectives,” he added,
Clear as mud: One area where there is not a degree of clarity is over affordability checks – an issue that has dominated the dialog about the sector for many years now, stretching back to when it first “bubbled up” in the context of gambling in 2019.
However, the very word ‘affordability’ as it related to gambling has become contested territory, Ketteley argued.
Liar, liar: He noted the UK Gambling Commission has “come out recently to say it never said there was an affordability mandate.”
“And that’s not true,” Ketteley said. “The Commission did absolutely say that and the publications in 2020 bear that out as do a number of enforcement cases that we have been involved in.”
“I don’t necessarily need the regulator to accept that that was the position, but it would be helpful if the term didn't still come up in their regulatory assessments, which I think it still does.”
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