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Members of Congress, health experts and a state regulator targeted prediction markets during a U.S. House hearing on the rise of sports betting on college campuses, urging lawmakers to rein in sports event contracts.
Wednesday’s hearing, held by the House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development, laid out data showing the prevalence of gambling among college students, with witnesses and members of Congress equating sports betting with trading sports contracts on prediction markets.
“Online sports books and prediction market apps have placed miniature casinos in the palms of our hands, making placing a bet as easy as checking the weather,” Chairman Michael Baumgartner (R-WA) said in his opening statement.
Bipartisan concerns over sports betting among college students
In Baumgartner’s hearing opening, he cited a 2023 survey commissioned by the NCAA citing that 67% of on-campus college students had placed bets on sports and that 6% of students had lost more than $500 in a single day. He gave the floor to Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC), who voiced severe criticism of prediction markets and recounted how states have built rules, restrictions and consumer and youth protections around sports betting.
“Those laws reflect the judgment of voters and their elected representatives,” Adams said. “Prediction markets have blown a hole straight through them by calling a bet an event contract. Companies like Kalshi and Polymarket claim that they aren’t gambling operations at all but financial exchanges, so state law doesn’t apply. Call it whatever you like. When a college student can wager on a game from his phone in a state that prohibits it, that is sports betting by another name.”
Rep. Adams takes aim at the CFTC
Adams also criticized the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, mentioning a House Judiciary Committee Democrats’ investigation into 1789 Capital, the venture firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner. The firm holds a stake in Polymarket and led the company’s most recent funding round this summer. Until recently, Trump Jr. was also an advisor to Kalshi.
“The regulator steps back and the president’s family profits, and the ones left unprotected are students. The through line here is predation, predatory products aimed at young people shielded from state law and overseen by a regulator that is asleep at the wheel.”
Witnesses ask Congress to take action
Four witnesses testified during the hearing:
- Dr. Lindsey Mortenson, chief mental health officer at the University of Michigan
- Daniel Durkin, an associate professor of social work at the University of Mississippi
- Jordan Maynard, chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission
- Cindy Clouner, managing director of Ohio State University’s Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Drug Misuse Prevention and Recovery
Mortenson emphasized the lack of federal research funding targeting problem gambling and recommended stronger oversight over “emerging gambling-like products” such as prediction markets for people under 25.
“U.S. research funding and data sharing are way behind,” Mortenson said. “And let me be really blunt here, the word gambling does not appear a single time on a list of 332 [National Institutes of Health] funding priorities.”
Durkin’s written testimony notes that Kalshi lets users as young as 18 trade sports event contracts even as most legal online sportsbooks require bettors to be 21. He cited Wall Street Journal reporting that prediction market companies use college social networks, student influencers and campus groups to promote their products, a claim in alignment with Mortenson’s testimony that the companies approach campus organizations for partnership opportunities.
Durkin asked for long-term national research on students and independent evaluations of campus programs.
As a regulator in a state with some of the strictest sports betting laws and ongoing legal battles against prediction market firms, it was no surprise that Maynard came out swinging against the companies.
“They’re offering the same product by a different name,” Maynard said. “And they’re not paying the taxes. They’re not following the regulatory framework.”
He also said the commission fields calls from consumers seeking help with disputes involving prediction market companies it does not regulate.
Both Clouner and Mortenson testified that many students mistake sports betting and prediction markets for financial investing rather than recognizing them as gambling. One of Clounder’s recommendations is for Congress to clarify that campuses can use block grants set aside for substance abuse and mental health services for problem gambling initiatives.
Baumgartner pushes for better campus prevention plans and prop bet restrictions
Baumgartner closed the hearing by saying the committee expects every college and university to have a plan for gambling education “without adding even more to the very thick levels of college bureaucracy.”
He mentioned his bill, H.R.1552, which would ban prop bets tied to an individual college athlete’s performance nationwide while still allowing wagers on overall game outcomes. The bill was filed in February 2025 and is still in committee.
