Congress introduced over 25 prediction market bills in 2026, covering age verification, sports contract bans, and insider trading rules. Here’s what bettors need to know.
Prediction markets like Kalshi, Polymarket, and Underdog‘s event-contract offerings have exploded in popularity over the past couple of years, letting users trade on everything from election outcomes to sports results to economic data. That growth hasn’t gone unnoticed in Washington. In the first half of 2026, lawmakers introduced more than two dozen bills touching prediction markets. Most are still sitting in committee, but a few could reshape how bettors use these platforms if they ever become law.
Here’s a plain-English look at what’s actually on the table, and what it would mean for the people placing the trades.
Age Verification Could Get Stricter
Several proposals would tighten who’s allowed on these platforms in the first place. The Facial Recognition to Protect Children Act (H.R. 9706) would require operators to use facial recognition to confirm a user is at least 18 before they can trade. Separately, the Prediction Markets Security and Integrity Act (S. 4060) would set a national minimum age of 21 and create a self-exclusion program similar to what’s used in traditional sports betting and casino gambling.
For everyday users, this could mean a more involved signup process, including ID scans and biometric checks, on top of the standard identity verification most platforms already require. It would also formalize an option for people to voluntarily ban themselves from these markets if they’re worried about their usage, something that doesn’t exist in a standardized way right now.
Sports and Casino-Style Contracts Are a Major Target
A cluster of bills specifically goes after prediction markets that mirror traditional sports betting or casino games. The Fair Markets and Sports Integrity Act (H.R. 7477) and the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act (S. 4160 / H.R. 9856) would both bar platforms from offering contracts tied to sporting events, athletic competitions, or casino-style games such as slots, blackjack, roulette, and lotteries, while carving out room for individual states to keep regulating those categories themselves. The Event Contract Enforcement Act (H.R. 7840) and the STOP Corrupt Bets Act (S. 4226 / H.R. 8123) go further, adding sports contracts to a broader list of prohibited categories.
This is arguably the piece most likely to directly affect bettors’ day-to-day experience. Sports-related contracts have been one of the biggest draws to prediction markets, partly because they’ve operated in a regulatory gray area that sidesteps traditional sports betting licensing in some states. If any version of these bills passes, users could see sports and casino-style contracts disappear from federally regulated platforms, potentially pushing that activity back toward licensed sportsbooks or state-regulated markets instead.
Certain Bet Types Could Be Banned Outright
A separate wave of bills would ban prediction market contracts tied to specific real-world events regardless of category, things like war, terrorism, assassination, and individual deaths. The DEATH BETS Act (S. 4035 / H.R. 7942) targets contracts on terrorism, assassination, war, or an individual’s death specifically, while the BETS OFF Act (S. 4115 / H.R. 7955) and the Event Contract Enforcement Act (H.R. 7840) take a broader swing at contracts tied to war, government actions, and other sensitive events. The Prediction Markets Security and Integrity Act (S. 4060) also folds in a prohibition on war and death related contracts alongside its licensing framework. These proposals followed public criticism after contracts tied to geopolitical violence and specific people’s deaths appeared on some platforms.
For bettors, this mostly narrows the menu rather than changing the experience. It would eliminate a category of contracts that many users and advocacy groups have already flagged as ethically uncomfortable, without touching the broader mechanics of how prediction markets function.
Government Officials Would Face New Restrictions, Not Regular Users
A large share of the 2026 bills focus on a different problem entirely: government officials, including members of Congress, the President, Vice President, federal judges, and senior agency staff, trading on prediction markets using nonpublic information they have access to through their jobs. Among them: the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act (S. 4188 / H.R. 7004), the End Prediction Market Corruption Act (S. 4017), the PREDICT Act (H.R. 8076), the Campaign Event Contract Integrity Act (H.R. 8771), the Campaign Funds Integrity Act (H.R. 8912), the Public Service Accountability Act (H.R. 9429), and the No Profiting from Public Service Act (H.R. 9560). The Honesty and Trust in Service Act (H.R. 9082) takes a narrower approach, directing the Department of Defense to bar military personnel from trading on nonpublic information. It was introduced after prosecutors charged a U.S. Army soldier with insider trading tied to a foreign leader’s capture, using a trade placed on a prediction market platform.
These bills wouldn’t restrict what typical users can do. Instead, they’d bar a narrow group of insiders from trading on markets related to their own official duties, similar to existing stock-trading restrictions on Congress. On the congressional side specifically, the Congressional Prediction Market Ban Act (H.R. 8838) and the Stop Lawmakers From Predicting Act (H.R. 9367) would extend that ban to members’ spouses and dependent children, and two House resolutions (H. Res. 1248 and H. Res. 1263) would impose similar restrictions on House members and staff. The Senate has already adopted a rule along these lines (S. Res. 708) for its own members, though it’s a chamber rule rather than binding law.
Advertising Rules Could Change What You See
The GAME Act (S. 4555) would prohibit large digital ad platforms from targeting minors with sports gambling ads, and it explicitly defines prediction markets as a form of sports gambling for that purpose. If it advances, bettors likely wouldn’t notice much difference themselves, but it signals that regulators increasingly view prediction markets through the same lens as traditional sports betting when it comes to consumer protection.
Where Things Actually Stand
It’s worth being clear about the state of play: almost all of these bills are still sitting in committee, which is where most federal legislation dies without ever reaching a floor vote. The one exception is the Senate’s internal rule barring its own members and staff from trading prediction markets, which has already taken effect. Nothing here changes how prediction markets operate for the average user today.
That said, the sheer volume of proposals signals where federal attention is heading. Between renewed scrutiny of CFTC oversight, growing bipartisan interest in age verification, and specific concern about sports and casino-style contracts, prediction market platforms are likely to face continued regulatory pressure through the rest of 2026 and beyond. Bettors who use these platforms regularly should keep an eye on which proposals gain traction, since the sports and casino-contract bans are the ones most likely to actually change what’s available to trade.
The Bottom Line
For now, nothing has changed for prediction market users. But the direction is clear: more identity verification, tighter restrictions on sports and casino-style contracts, and a widening gap between what officials can trade and what everyone else can. Whether any of it becomes binding law will depend on whether Congress moves these bills out of committee in the second half of 2026, something that, historically, most similar proposals fail to do.
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