AGA: Tribal gaming rights
Chris Cylke, SVP, Government Relations at the American Gaming Association, puts forward the body’s stance on sports events contracts and how these also affect Tribal gaming.
Recently US prediction markets have gained popularity, allowing individuals to wager money on elections, economic trends and other cultural events by predicting outcomes. Now, some providers of these prediction markets are expanding into sports betting, a move that raises serious concerns for the legal sports betting industry. These so-called sports event contracts not only create an uneven playing field for licensed operators, but also threaten consumer protections and state revenues.
Since the Supreme Court struck down PASPA in 2018, 38 states and DC have launched legal sports betting markets.These markets operate under strict state regulations designed to ensure consumer safety, uphold game integrity, promote responsible play and generate tax revenue for public services like education, public safety and infrastructure. In 2024 alone, legal sports betting generated more than $2.81bn in gaming taxes.
Unlike licensed, regulated sportsbooks, prediction markets currently are not subject to the same rigorous oversight.These sports event contracts essentially operate as a de facto national sports betting product, circumventing licensing, consumer protection protocols and integrity requirements that all legal operators follow. In states with exclusive Tribal gaming authority, these sports event contracts violate long-standing agreements that support vital revenue for Tribal communities.
In recent weeks, more than 10 Tribal gaming groups have sent letters to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) noting their concern that sports event contracts violate Tribal gaming rights. Beyond the economic and regulatory concerns, these contracts pose significant risks to consumers and the legal sports betting marketplace.
Licensed sportsbooks are required to implement robust safeguards, including age verification, Know Your Customer protocols, anti-money laundering protections, self-exclusion programs and integrity monitoring. Meanwhile, under current CFTC regulations these sports contracts fail to address these critical areas of consumer protection. And let’s not forget the concern over the fundamental shift in perception these contracts could create. The AGA and our members have worked diligently to instill in consumers the understanding that sports betting is a form of entertainment and not a form of financial investment.
This is a key tenet of our industry’s efforts to educate the public on how to gamble responsibly. Considering that these sports event contracts are operated by financial investment companies, it will undermine the work our industry has done to differentiate between gaming and financial investments.
Given the serious implications these sports event contracts will have on the legal sports betting industry, the AGA will participate in an upcoming CFTC roundtable addressing the legality of these markets. We believe the sports betting industry provides a critical perspective that must be considered before allowing these prediction markets to offer wagering on sporting events.
Regulated sports betting has been built through a transparent, state-led process with oversight from more than 5,000 state and Tribal regulators around the country. Allowing this latest cohort of companies to bypass these standards not only undermines fair competition but also threatens the integrity of the entire legal industry. The AGA remains committed to ensuring that legal sports betting in the US continues to operate in a way that upholds state and Tribal authority while prioritizing consumer protections, marketplace integrity and responsible gaming.
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