Casino Lobby Blames Prediction Markets for First Flat NFL Betting Season

Trade Body Forecast Lands Soon After Supreme Court Enters Picture

The American Gaming Association published its yearly NFL forecast connected Sept. 4, 5 days earlier the play opens with a Super Bowl rematch betwixt the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. The projection of $29.5 cardinal successful ineligible grip covers preseason games, futures booked arsenic aboriginal arsenic March, the playoffs, and Super Bowl LXI successful February 2027, against $29.4 cardinal past play – the astir important slowdown successful caller years.

From past September done May, the magnitude wagered with U.S. sportsbooks grew 4%, ESPN reported, compared to 14% implicit the aforesaid play a twelvemonth earlier. Missouri is the lone authorities to person launched ineligible betting since 2025, but the AGA is pointing to a antithetic culprit for the constricted growth.

AGA president and main enforcement Bill Miller stated the pursuing successful the association’s release: “Since the wide motorboat of backdoor sports betting connected alleged ‘prediction markets,’ the maturation of ineligible grip has stalled.” He added that the platforms are “dangerously misleading consumers by selling sports wagers arsenic an investment, alternatively than what it is: entertainment,” and that their refusal to travel authorities and tribal rules means “consumers, including teenagers and freshmen, placing bets without the protections, oversight, and accountability that the ineligible marketplace provides.”

Per the AGA, sports contracts marque up astir 80% of Kalshi’s volume, an estimated $5.1 cardinal of which came from users aged 18 to 20 – which is beneath the ineligible wagering property successful astir jurisdictions wherever sports betting is legal. The forecast besides claims that Kalshi and Polymarket person diverted much than $1.3 cardinal successful imaginable authorities gaming taxation gross betwixt them since 2025, against an manufacture the AGA says generates astir $18 cardinal a twelvemonth successful sports betting taxation and supports 1.8 cardinal jobs.

The AGA, whose rank has been reshaped by a question of departures implicit the past year, calculated the forecast by applying nationalist grip maturation truthful acold successful 2026 to past year’s estimated NFL total, past utilizing football-specific reporting from selected states to enactment retired the nonrecreational shot stock – an extrapolation from a anterior estimation alternatively than a measurement.

Not everyone shares the commercialized body’s cloudy outlook. Per ESPN and Rotowire, manufacture probe steadfast Eilers & Krejcik Gaming recovered that portion NFL trading measurement connected prediction markets successful August ran 4.6 times higher than successful August past year, with projections that the season’s full could astir treble to $36.8 billion, and analysis suggesting that “44% of that measurement comes from California and Texas alone, and 69% from states with nary sports betting astatine all”. An important caveat that is often missing from coverage: this fig is not straight comparable to sportsbook handle, arsenic measurement counts contracts that alteration hands repeatedly, portion grip counts wealth staked once.

Optimove Insights polled 926 U.S. NFL bettors successful August and recovered 84% had heard of prediction markets, with 60% saying they planned to trade, buy, oregon merchantability lawsuit contracts during the year. The selling steadfast cautioned successful the aforesaid study that stated plans typically overstate enactment and that existent information volition apt autumn beneath 60%.

Prediction markets’ regulatory combat and their struggle with established sports betting and casino providers proceed to escalate, with the highest tribunal of the onshore apt to measurement successful connected the substance soon. A national appeals tribunal ruled past week that Nevada whitethorn enforce its gaming laws against Kalshi’s sports contracts, and New Jersey asked the Supreme Court connected Sept. 2 to settee a circuit divided connected whether states clasp that authority.

The NFL has entered the statement directly: main compliance serviceman Sabrina Perel wrote to prediction marketplace operators past week that it is “deeply concerning that bets wrong the objectionable categories that we identified months agone person been and proceed to beryllium listed arsenic contracts connected exchanges,” in a missive obtained by ESPN. The Coalition for Prediction Markets did not respond to a petition for remark to the sports quality site.