Vermont has become the latest state to take aim at the quickly growing prediction-market industry. A new bill introduced in the Vermont House of Representatives on February 25 would classify event contracts as illegal gambling and add a 50-cent fee to every wager placed through the state’s licensed sportsbooks.
House Bill 913 (H.913), sponsored by Rep. Thomas Stevens (D), seeks to prohibit “prediction market securities or commodities on the outcome of certain events.” Stevens was joined by a bipartisan group of co-sponsors, including Rep. Angela Arsenault (D), Rep. Carolyn Branagan (R), and Rep. Laura Sibilia (I).
As written, the bill would amend Vermont law to make it clear that its prohibition of wagering activities covers prediction-market securities or commodities involving sports, contests, natural persons, politics and campaigns, disasters, war, all-hazards, or death.
Under the bill, introduced as a short-form measure, these event contracts would become void under Vermont law, opening the door for people to sue to recover lost funds. Because this is a short-form bill, the full text has not yet been published.
Bill Targets Event Contracts & Adds Sports Betting Surcharge
If passed, H.913 would amend Vermont’s criminal statutes (13 V.S.A. chapter 51) to close a regulatory loophole in the state’s current laws. The proposed bill would criminalize any event contract based on the result of an athletic contest, political campaign, or “all-hazards” event, including war or public-health crises.
However, the bill doesn’t stop at prediction markets; it would also amend the state’s wagering statutes to add a per-wager fee of $0.50 for all bets made through Vermont’s authorized operators. The fee would be a significant increase in the cost of doing business for the state’s three licensed operators, DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics.
The timing of the bill comes just over a year after Rep. Stevens introduced H.133, which seeks to repeal Vermont’s legalized sports betting and state lottery entirely.
Vermont Joins a Wider State-Level Pushback
With this bill, Vermont joins a growing list of states that have introduced legislation to prohibit prediction markets.
In February, Rep. Edgar González Jr. (D) introduced House Bill 5059 in Illinois, which would ban several types of prediction markets, including sports event contracts, while also requiring operators to comply with responsible gaming, advertising, and anti-manipulation rules.
Hawaii, a state where almost all forms of gambling are illegal, introduced similar legislation, House Bill 2198, in January. Under the proposed bill, the state’s current definition of gambling would change, making event contracts on “athletics, politics, catastrophe, and death” and other real-world outcomes illegal.
Besides Vermont, Illinois, and Hawaii, New York and New Jersey have introduced bills that would restrict or prohibit prediction markets. The backlash against prediction markets has been growing for some time now.
In a January letter addressed to the Chairmen and ranking members of the Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs, and the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, the National Conference of State Legislatures called on Congress to act against what it called the “rapid growth of unregulated sports‑related event contracts offered by prediction markets.”
At the same time, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), under new chairman Michael Selig, has taken a more assertive stance in favor of prediction markets. Selig has said that the CFTC holds “exclusive jurisdiction” over commodity derivatives, including event contracts.
Last month, Selig directed the agency to file an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to defend prediction markets against what he termed an “onslaught of state-led litigation.”
As Vermont’s House Committee on Government Operations begins its review of H.913, one thing is clear: the jurisdictional tug-of-war between state gambling regulators and the CFTC likely won’t end anytime soon.
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Vermont has become the latest state to take aim at the quickly growing prediction-market industry. A new bill introduced in the Vermont House of Representatives on February 25 would classify event contracts as illegal gambling and add a 50-cent fee to every wager placed through the state’s licensed sportsbooks. House Bill 913 (H.913), sponsored by
The post Vermont Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Ban Prediction Markets appeared first on CasinoBeats.