Prediction markets adoption of products functionally similar to sports betting has been rapid and expansive over the last 18 months. Are online casino-style event contracts next?
Speaking at the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS) Summer Meeting in July, the chairman of Nevada’s gaming regulator was one of multiple industry figures who warned that casino-style contracts are already on their way, and that state legislators cannot afford to sit on their hands and wait for the Supreme Court to settle the issue of sports prediction markets.
“If you think they’re not coming for online gaming in all 50 states, you’re wrong, because they are coming,” said Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) Chairman Mike Dreitzer at this month’s event in San Diego, Calif.
‘Casino-style’ event contracts are the new concern
Until relatively recently, the pushback against prediction markets from the gaming industry has focused mainly, if not entirely, on sports. But language addressing “casino-style” contracts has begun to seep into the discourse.
Back in February, Nevada Rep. Dina Titus, who is Co-Chair of the Congressional Gaming Caucus, announced her Fair Markets and Sports Integrity Act, which aims to ban platforms from allowing “transactions involving sporting or casino-style event contracts.”
Last month, a letter urging the U.S. Senate to explicitly prohibit “event contracts tied to sports and casino-style gaming” was co-signed by numerous organizations, including the AGA and several tribal groups:
- Indian Gaming Association (IGA)
- National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)
- The official Indian gaming associations of Arizona, California, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Washington
And just last week, two of Titus’ fellow Nevada members of Congress filed the House version of the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act, which would effectively implement the same prohibition as her bill, using similar “casino-style” language.
What even is a ‘casino-style’ contract?
The idea of casino-style prediction markets is new enough that actual definitions of what the term means are still relatively hard to come by. But legislators who have felt a need to introduce bills naming those products use the phrase to broadly describe any event contract based on mechanics similar to typical casino games.
“The term ‘casino-style game’ means any game customarily offered in casinos or gambling establishments, including slot machines, blackjack, roulette, craps, poker, bingo, lotteries, or any digital or simulated version of such games,” reads a note in Titus’ Fair Markets and Sports Integrity Act.
The Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act uses very similar wording.
“The term ‘casino-style game’ means any game traditionally found in a casino, including slot machine games, video poker, blackjack, roulette, craps, any other casino-style table game, bingo, lottery, and any simulation of any of those games,” it specifies.
What about the casino contract revenue?
The AGA frequently speaks publicly about the amount of online sports betting revenue that it argues has been lost due to prediction markets’ expansion into the sports betting space. AGA Senior Vice President Chris Cylke testified in a Congressional hearing last week that the trade group estimates that states and tribes have lost more than $1.2bn in tax revenue on that front.
Other data is framed differently. An EKG report in April suggested that 69% of volume on event contracts exchanges is coming in states that have not legalized sports betting. Eilers & Krejcik Gaming Partner Emeritus Chris Grove said that he wouldn’t expect much cannibalization of online casino revenue from such potential products, because they target different audiences and are unlikely to provide a direct mirror of the typical online casino experience.
AGA revenue tracker numbers suggested that in 2025, iGaming gross gaming revenue hit a new annual record of $10.74bn, a 27.6% increase on 2024, which generated a total of $2.59bn in taxes. Those totals came from just seven active online casino markets in the U.S. By contrast, the 30+ online sports betting markets across the country in 2025 generated $16.96bn in revenue from $166.94bn in sports wagering handle and raised $3.71bn in taxes.
The AGA’s most recent monthly tracker suggested that iGaming revenue was $1.03bn in May alone, compared to $1.34bn for online sports betting. The association said that sports wagering revenue fell 1.8% year over year “as sports betting on prediction markets continues to explode”. Revenues in the fastest-growing state-regulated gambling segment of iGaming rose 14.7%, although the AGA did note that online casino’s pace of growth has slowed significantly in recent months.
The AGA told SBC Americas that it could not offer any estimates at this time of the impact that casino-style prediction markets might have on state-regulated gaming revenues.
Where does CFTC stand?
Last month, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) outlined its proposed rules on prediction markets, seeming to suggest that casino-style contracts should not be allowed, although it used much more vague language than the lawmakers who are concerned by such products.
“The Commission preliminarily believes that event contracts involving games whose outcome depends on random chance — e.g., pure luck — are likely to be contrary to the public interest,” read a line in the CFTC’s proposed rules.
“… When an outcome is dictated solely by luck and cannot be meaningfully predicted, participants have no insight to contribute, leaving their forecasts without any informational value. Trading in such event contracts therefore provides no meaningful information that could support decision-making or market understanding.”
Leading CFTC-registered prediction market platforms have insisted that any fears over such products are unfounded. The Coalition for Prediction Markets, which includes Kalshi and Crypto.com, wrote to the commission in late April to state that it would support a potential rule banning prediction markets from offering products related to “traditional casino games”, as reported by Politico.
Around the same time as the prediction markets coalition wrote that letter to the CFTC, the commission’s Chairman Michael Selig said in comments to Front Office Sports that the CFTC “might consider different rules” for contracts that look more like casino products, or could decide not to allow those products at all.
Several entities submitted comments on the CFTC’s proposed rules arguing that the framework would leave space for casino-style expansion within prediction markets.
“If the Proposed Rule were adopted, prediction market operators could offer contracts on the outcome of anything from online poker, to online roulette, to online slot machines as long as the CFTC does not intervene within ten days of listing,” wrote the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers (AGEM).
“The Proposed Rule does not rule out the listing of ‘games’ involving ‘random chance,’ such as traditional slot machines or online roulette … In plain English, the Proposed Rule would lead to nationwide online casino gaming of every type imaginable.”
Are gaming industry fears justified?
At the NCLGS conference, where a large portion of the attendance was comprised of state gaming legislators and regulators, Light & Wonder Head of Government Affairs and Legislative Counsel Howard Glaser also expressed concern on a prediction markets discussion panel that casino-style markets are likely to be prediction markets’ next expansion into products resembling state-regulated gaming.
“We would be foolish to sit on our hands and wait for the Supreme Court on this …” Glaser said. “The barbarians would not be at the gate, they would be over the gate.”
That fear is not brand new, particularly for regulators, operators, and other stakeholders with roots in land-based casino gaming. Back in November 2025, PENN Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden warned on an earnings call that he would be “shocked” if prediction market operators weren’t already talking about the idea.
“If you can move forward with prediction markets and sports gambling, what would stop you from offering prediction markets and contracts on the next spin of a slot machine, the next hand of blackjack, the next spin of the ball for a roulette table?” Snowden asked rhetorically on that call. “We’re going to be talking about this in a matter of months, not years.”
SBC Americas reached out to numerous parties for this story, including various prediction market operators and the American Gaming Association (AGA), none of which offered a comment.
Grove told SBC Americas that he believes that people who are expecting event contracts on the outcomes of blackjack hands may be thinking about things “the wrong way”.
“I don’t think you’ll see ‘casino contracts’ so much as you’ll see prediction markets move more in the direction of offering trading overlays that are more engaging, entertaining, and higher volatility,” Grove said. “Or, put more simply, prediction market operators are likely to make trading more of a game.”
Just look at HHR, says NGCB’s Dreitzer
Under Dreitzer, the NGCB has been one of the most vociferous states in first warning about prediction markets’ threat to state-regulated gambling and subsequently in fighting battles in court. The chair explained to the NCLGS Summer Meeting audience that he thinks Glaser’s suggestion that casino contracts “are coming” is underselling it.
“As of last January, I saw a five-reel product that purported to be an online slot product that was in fact driven by prediction contracts,” Dreitzer said. “So the product exists; it’s not a future thing … If you don’t think the next step is going to be online gaming in all 50 states, think again.
“If there’s a proper loophole, they’re going to find it. And this idea of taking a prediction outcome, putting it into a five-reel type slot machine, putting it in a cabinet? The next thing you know, you have it on every street corner: Casino gaming that you can’t tax and you can’t regulate.”
Even within state-regulated gaming, it’s not as if lines haven’t been blurred before, Dreitzer noted. He referenced historical horse racing (HHR), a product which uses randomized historic horse racing results as a basis for sports betting and which has been compared by some to the mechanics of a slot machine.
“You have HHR machines that, if you play them, even for those of us who understand the industry, are largely indistinguishable from a slot you will find on the Las Vegas Strip,” Dreitzer opined. “The only difference here is that this is just the federal government attempting to impose this on the states.”
Other arguably slot-style products have emerged in recent times from online gaming operators, including:
- Hard Rock Bet’s Games product that similarly uses results of past NASCAR races
- DraftKings‘ DK Replay offering in Oregon which lets customers bet on real historical at-bats from MLB games
Dreitzer, for one, seem to believe that prediction markets leaning on slot-style mechanics is a logical next step for a sector trying to push boundaries and find more profitability. Certainly, it has got those with casino interests feeling as though they need to sound the alarm.
