Federal Legislation

Congress Moves to Ban Sports Betting on Prediction Markets — What It Would Mean for Nebraska

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23 July 2026 · Based on reporting by The Nevada Independent

Two Nevada congressmen introduced a bipartisan bill today that would ban prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket from offering sports and casino-style contracts nationwide. Nowhere in the country does that bill matter more than in retail-only states like Nebraska, where prediction-market apps have quietly become the closest thing to legal online sports betting.

The Bill

Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) and Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) unveiled the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act in an interview with The Nevada Independent. If passed, it would prohibit Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated prediction markets from listing "event contracts" tied to sports outcomes or casino-style games. It would explicitly affirm that states and tribes retain the ultimate authority to regulate gambling.

The Senate version — led by Sens. John Curtis (R-UT) and Adam Schiff (D-CA), with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) as a co-sponsor — is already in play. Two other House bills target the same industry: Rep. Dina Titus's (D-NV) Fair Markets and Sports Integrity Act, and a broader Moore/Carbajal bill that would also ban contracts on elections, terrorism and war. Horsford and Amodei argue their narrower, bipartisan scope makes it the most viable of the three.

The American Gaming Association, UNITE HERE and the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 are all backing the bill. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour has publicly dismissed the effort as "the casino lobby hard at work."

Why Nebraska Should Pay Attention

Prediction markets have exploded in states where mobile sports betting is either illegal or absent — and Nebraska is exactly that market. The state's LB 561 framework limits legal wagering to five retail sportsbooks. There is no legal mobile sportsbook. But Kalshi and Polymarket are federally regulated under the CFTC, do not pay state gaming tax, and — until recently — have been broadly accessible from Nebraska phones.

The scale of the substitution is significant. By one estimate cited in the Nevada Independent report, prediction markets accounted for more than a quarter of all US sports betting during the World Cup. Nevada — the country's oldest legal sportsbook market — reported its lowest Super Bowl handle in a decade earlier this year. Where does that missing handle go? For a lot of it, the answer is prediction-market apps.

That dynamic is even more pronounced in Nebraska. Our own Q1 2026 NRGC handle report shows Nebraska retail sports-betting GGR sliding month over month through April, with no March Madness bump — a pattern consistent with bettors routing action to mobile-legal Iowa across the river and to prediction markets on their phones.

The Two Nebraska Scenarios

The bill's fate matters especially in Nebraska because it collides with the state's own gambling calendar. Nebraska voters could face a constitutional amendment on statewide mobile sports betting this November — provided petitioners cleared the roughly 125,000-signature threshold by the July 2026 deadline.

Two scenarios matter for Nebraska bettors:

• Ban passes + ballot passes: Prediction-market sports contracts go away nationwide, but Nebraska gets its own legal mobile sportsbook market to fill the gap. Net neutral for consumers, net positive for state tax revenue at the 20% rate that currently applies to retail.
• Ban passes + ballot fails: The worst outcome for Nebraska bettors — no legal online option of any kind. Bettors would be forced back to retail-only visits, cross-border Iowa mobile accounts, or offshore books that offer none of the CFTC consumer protections that prediction markets at least provide today.

The reverse combinations — ban failing while ballot passes, or both failing — preserve some form of online access for Nebraska residents.

What the CFTC Is Doing

The Horsford–Amodei bill is a direct response to a June 2026 CFTC rulemaking that would formally authorise sports event contracts nationwide. The proposed rule effectively creates what Horsford calls "a backdoor for sports betting even in states where such wagers are illegal" — states like Nebraska.

CFTC Chairman Mike Selig defended the commission's authority over state gaming regulators in a February statement. If both the CFTC rule and the Horsford–Amodei bill move forward on parallel tracks, the outcome could become an outright jurisdictional fight between federal financial regulators and state gaming commissions like the Nebraska Racing and Gaming Commission.

What Comes Next

The bill drops into a crowded federal-legislation queue and its timing is not certain. What is certain is that it lands during the exact same year Nebraska voters may decide whether to legalise their own mobile market. For the Nebraska bettor googling "how do I bet the NFL on my phone in Nebraska," the answer over the next 12 months could be transformed by two votes taken thousands of miles apart — one in Washington, one in Lincoln.