Stop Prediction Markets From Buying Their Way Out of Gambling Laws

Support the NDAA provisions banning prediction market bets on military operations, back state authority to regulate these platforms as gambling, and reject any legislation that lets Kalshi and Polymarket escape accountability. These companies are not offering financial instruments — they are running online casinos, and a coalition of 44 state attorneys general agree. Kalshi alone has spent nearly $1 million on federal lobbying in the first half of 2026, donated $317,500 to the Republican and Democratic Attorneys General Associations, and hired lobbyists in 41 states — almost all since April. Donald Trump Jr. holds equity stakes in both Kalshi and Polymarket while pressuring Republican AGs not to fight them. Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who once said the CFTC should block contracts that "exist predominantly to enable gambling," is now on Kalshi's payroll arguing the opposite. This is what regulatory capture looks like. The CFTC suing states for enforcing their own gambling laws is, as Roosevelt Institute director Brad Lipton put it, "unprecedented." Congress needs to step in. Do not let $3 million in industry lobbying rewrite the rules so that a handful of well-connected companies can profit while avoiding the consumer protections every other gambling operation must follow.