Inside the Widening Lobbying Fight Over Prediction Markets

Key Takeaways

• Numbers in Circulation: CNN reported casino-specific opposition spending at just over $3.3 million this year; a wider industry-wide OpenSecrets figure of roughly $50 million for 2025 is also being cited on X. Kalshi’s own reported federal lobbying spend was about $1.8 million in the first half of 2026 alone.
• Four Simultaneous Fronts: The dispute spans federal litigation, 44 of 50 state attorneys general, tribal gaming interests, and more than a dozen pending congressional bills.
• Ninth Circuit Decision: The court unanimously held that states may regulate prediction platforms as gambling, siding with Nevada regulators and Las Vegas casinos.
• Fracturing Alliances: DraftKings and FanDuel have broken from the traditional casino coalition by launching their own prediction-market products.

A NOTUS report published September 3 profiled Kalshi’s Washington lobbying operation — over two dozen federal lobbyists, many with congressional backgrounds. The piece drew a quick reply on X from Mick Bransfield, a prediction-markets policy consultant, who argued it left out “the tens of millions the casino industry spends” opposing prediction markets. That exchange is one thread in a faster-moving, wider story: a regulatory fight over prediction markets running on several fronts at once, of which lobbying spend is only the most visible online.

The Numbers in Circulation

Kalshi has assembled former legislative directors to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, former chiefs of staff, senior counsels, former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, and longtime Republican staffer Tony Hanagan to lead its congressional affairs. The platform’s own Coalition for Prediction Markets is led by former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney with former Rep. Patrick McHenry as senior adviser. Its co-founders have also made personal donations to more than three dozen lawmakers this cycle.

Two different figures are circulating for the casino side of the ledger. CNN’s reporting puts casino-specific opposition spending at just over $3.3 million this year. Bransfield’s post pointed to OpenSecrets data showing the broader “casinos-gambling” lobbying category — which covers the industry’s full policy agenda, not only prediction markets — at roughly $50 million for 2025. Kalshi’s own reported federal lobbying spend was about $1.8 million in the first half of 2026 alone. Which comparison is the more useful one depends on whether the question is “how much lobbying muscle does the industry have” or “how much is aimed specifically at prediction markets” — both framings are live in the current discussion.

The Litigation Front and Ninth Circuit Ruling

Days before the NOTUS story, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivered the casino side its most significant win to date. The court ruled unanimously that states can regulate prediction platforms as a form of gambling, aligning with Nevada regulators and a coalition of Las Vegas casinos and directly contradicting an earlier Third Circuit ruling that had favored Kalshi.

Derek Stevens, owner of three Vegas casinos and Circa Sports, told CNN prediction platforms were built “to avoid paying taxes” and called their operators “thieves. They’re pirates. They’re marauders,” adding that Circa’s sports handle is down 35 percent this year, which he attributes to prediction-market competition. A source close to Polymarket pushed back in the same CNN report: “If the gambling lobby is resorting to name-calling, that tells you this is really starting to hurt their wallets.” Former Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, now a paid Kalshi adviser, cast the casino reaction as a familiar pattern: “It’s how gaming responds to competition. They don’t like it. They want to have a monopoly.”

Whatever the rhetoric on either side, the circuit split itself creates immediate regulatory uncertainty that operators have to navigate regardless of how the lobbying-spend debate resolves.

State Attorneys General, Tribes, and Revenue Pressures

Beyond Washington, 44 of 50 state attorneys general have joined dozens of Indian tribes, consumer advocates and addiction-treatment groups in pressing for tighter oversight. These parties argue that federally licensed commodity exchanges deprive states of gaming-tax revenue, which reached nearly $18 billion nationally last year.

Framing this purely as “the casino lobby vs. prediction markets” undercounts who is actually at the table: consumer advocates and addiction-treatment groups are pressing many of the same points as state regulators, on their own separate rationale, and tribes face distinct exposure on compact revenues and exclusivity arrangements that has nothing to do with any casino operator’s competitive position.

Congressional Gridlock and the Limits of Legislation

More than a dozen bills now sit in Congress. These range from the Prediction Market Act barring members of Congress and the president from trading, to measures by Rep. Josh Gottheimer and others limiting minors’ access, to proposals from Reps. Nikki Budzinski and Eugene Vindman restricting federal officials and military personnel. Sen. Katie Britt and Sen. Richard Blumenthal have targeted social media advertising to minors. Rep. Jamie Raskin, with a Senate companion from Sen. Jeff Merkley, seeks to ban trading on elections, government actions, court decisions and sports.

None of these measures has advanced with fewer than four months remaining in the current Congress — a reminder that legislative outcomes remain distant even as litigation and state-level pressure move faster.

A Shifting Industry Frame

The “casino industry versus prediction markets” framing is also getting more complicated on its own terms. DraftKings and FanDuel have launched their own prediction-market offerings in jurisdictions where sports betting remains illegal, even as both companies’ stocks have fallen amid analyst concern about prediction-market cannibalization of sports-betting handle. That is a competing commercial incentive inside the broader gaming sector, not a clean two-sided fight.

What Operators and Tribes Are Actually Watching

However the lobbying-numbers debate settles, the more concrete signal is how the Ninth Circuit precedent interacts with state licensing regimes, how tribes protect compact revenues, and whether federal legislation eventually resolves the circuit split. Operators are better served mapping regulatory exposure state by state than tracking K Street headcounts. Tribes and regulators, meanwhile, are watching an environment where today’s adversaries could become tomorrow’s platform partners — worth planning around regardless of which lobbying figure turns out to be the “real” one.

Reporting: NOTUS / CNN / X (Mick Bransfield)

Generated by SCCG’s automated editorial system from published source reporting. SCCG Management holds editorial responsibility.