The battle between sportsbooks and prediction markets continues, in the form of states and local governments attempting to shut down what arguably amounts to unlicensed bookmaking.
Via Mikenzie Frost of Fox 45, Baltimore is suing Kalshi and Polymarket for offering sports betting without a license.
Baltimore alleges that this practice allows the companies “to compete with regulated sportsbooks while avoiding the oversight, taxation, responsible-gambling requirements.”
It’s the latest front in the ongoing nationwide fight to regulate prediction markets, which in theory are exclusively within the purview of the federal government.
And the issue won’t be going away, until the Supreme Court inevitably rules on it. Prediction markets are booming, to the extent that leading sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel are pivoting to prediction markets as a way to expand the customer base in states that have yet to legalize sports betting.
Both companies had disappointing earnings for the second quarter of 2026, due in part to a drop in sportsbook revenue. And because prediction markets are operating in all 50 states with a minimum age of 18, not 21, there are plenty of potential suckers, I mean “customers,” who are too young and inexperienced to realize that the lure of getting rich quick is a siren’s song that will cause them to crash their bank accounts into the rocks of reality.
It’s a problem. And it’s not going away, thanks to insufficient regulation that has resulted in non-stop advertising and continuous touting from TV programs, radio shows, and podcasts that pay lip service to the idea that certain people should perhaps consider plugging their ears with wax — before launching into the “can’t-lose” tune that will lure them to part with the cash that pays the various media outlets to push for more and more people to pony up their take-home pay.
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