Tennessee latest state to push back on prediction markets

Despite the massive popularity that sports prediction gambling has gained, it doesn’t look like it’ll be happening in Tennessee anytime soon. The Tennessee Sports Wagering Council (SWC) has urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to prevent it from entering the state.

This comes as the SWC prepares for an April 30 roundtable hosted by the CFTC. It has submitted the appeal with the backing of its Executive Director, Mary Beth Thomas.

Websites like Polymarket and Kalshi have been heavily scrutinized in the last few months. Polymarket’s CEO was raided last November, over the US election and the prediction bets it had curated.

The letter submitted brings 13 violations that the body has allegedly found. A large part of this is that prediction markets don’t carry a license for sports betting. If websites like Polymarket were allowed to operate sports betting in the state, it’d be violating the Tennessee Sports Gaming Act.

Tennessee also prevents gambling on what sites like Kalshi and the upcoming DraftKings prediction app would encourage. These prediction betting sites would allow for betting on almost any aspect of the sport in question, including injuries, penalties, and other actions certain college athletes would take. Tennessee prohibits these from being involved in the betting process.

Polymarket also operates off of cryptocurrency, and some apps allow for credit cards to fund bets. Again, Tennessee has rules in place to ensure that vulnerable gamblers don’t pump all their cash into the betting ring.

As of right now, Polymarket’s offerings are quite tame in the sporting world. Nothing stands out as a major violation of Tennessee rulings, outside of the way you fund bets. Currently, the site is clamouring over politics betting, with a $3 million volume behind whether or not the US will enter a recession in 2025. There are also bets on the next Prime Minister of Canada.

However, the SWC claims that these sites don’t work in conjunction with the protections offered by regulations. As mentioned above, the two bodies will hash it out at a roundtable on April 30.

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