“Prediction Markets Threaten Iowa’s Gambling Rules”
Bill Miller, CEO of the American Gaming Association, warns in a Des Moines Register op-ed that prediction markets dodge Iowa’s strict gambling laws. These platforms, posing as financial tools, act like sports betting and risk consumer safety.
Iowa’s Strong Gambling Framework
Iowa has built a solid system for regulating gambling, from casinos to sports betting legalized in 2019. The state enforces rules like age limits, identity checks, and responsible gaming standards. These efforts have brought in $59.9 million in sports betting taxes, funding infrastructure, workforce programs, and problem gambling treatment.
Miller argues this balance protects Iowans while supporting communities, but prediction markets challenge it.
Prediction market platforms, approved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), let users wager on events like sports outcomes.
Miller calls them bets, not investments, saying, “If it looks like a bet, acts like a bet, and carries the same risks as a bet, then it should be regulated as gambling.”
Unlike Iowa’s licensed operators, these platforms skip state oversight, avoid taxes, and lack consumer protections, putting players and sports integrity at risk.
CFTC Overreach and State Rights
The CFTC, meant to regulate agricultural markets, isn’t built to oversee gambling, Miller notes. Former CFTC Chair Heath Tarbert said its focus is “America’s farmers and ranchers,” not betting.
Yet, prediction markets use a loose CFTC “self-certification” process to operate, bypassing Iowa’s rules. Miller, backed by 34 state attorneys general including Iowa’s Brenna Bird, insists states should control gambling, as affirmed by the 2018 Supreme Court Murphy v. NCAAruling. He urges the CFTC to stay in its lane and let Iowa regulate bets.
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