Pennsylvania’s gaming board is warning licensed operators not to dabble in the “Wild West” of online prediction markets, as courts and regulators continue to wrangle with betting apps that are operating outside of states’ purviews.
Unlike others, however, Pennsylvania has legal language in place to tax sports wagers taken by such apps, state lawmakers were told Tuesday — one possible way to rein in what officials described as gambling masquerading as financial services, with increasingly dire consequences.
“Prediction market” systems include increasingly common apps like Kalshi, Polymarket, PredictIt, and others, where users can place a monetary value on the likelihood of future events, be they a sports game, an election, the clothes a celebrity will wear on the red carpet, or virtually any other circumstance.
