SCOTUS should weigh in on prediction markets, says New Jersey AG who wants to shut down sites like Kalshi, Polymarket
New Jersey is asking the Supreme Court to weigh in for the first time on regulation of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket — potentially paving the way for the Garden State to shut them down.New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a petition with the highest court in the land on Wednesday, asking it to review a lower court’s decision that prediction markets are subject only to federal regulation.“We’re calling on the Supreme Court to resolve this issue and recognize that Congress did not silently make the sports-betting industry immune from state law,” the Democratic prosecutor said in a statement.“States have long adopted careful laws to regulate gambling, including to prevent compulsive gambling, gambling by minors, and insider trading on sports games,” she added.The industry is overseen by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission.But state AGs from both sides of the political aisle across the country, along with dozens of Native tribes and the casino industry, have launched a movement to subject prediction markets to the same state laws regulating casinos and sportsbooks.Prediction sites, which have seen an explosive rise in popularity over the past few years, allow users to bet on everything from sports and pop culture to politics.Critics have argued that they operate as unlicensed sportsbooks, skirting state laws and taxes and allowing young gamblers – legally blocked from other forms of sports betting – onto the platforms.It is likely the Supreme Court will decide in the fall whether it wants to take up the case.
If it does, a decision would be expected around next summer.State oversight of prediction markets could mark a major setback for the companies, which do billions of dollars in trading volume per week.Both the companies and President Trump himself have strongly pushed back against state regulation, with the commander-in-chief writing on social media earlier this year, “It is critically important that...