These legal battles reshape the game in the United States

What should the game look in in America? A new wave of prosecution and legislation tests the limits.

We had a clearer image of what it means to be a game company in the United States last year. Sports betting has become soaked while the Americans have legally betting $ 148 billion on sports, 24% more than the previous year, according to the American Gambling Association estimates.

But the concerns have also increased around dependence on the game and if the industry is enough to protect the most at risk, including young men. The high -level Paris scandals have shaken the world of sport and highlighted the risks for athletes.

Culturally, there was an increasing feeling that perhaps the expansion of the game “was too fast,” said Business Insider Chris Grove, an investor of the leading industry with Acies Investments.

Some legislators have sought to curb game companies. New York, which has taken more money on sports betting than any other state last year, envisages new railings on the quantity of bet of a person in one day and on certain advertising practices, for example. There is also a renewed effort this year to introduce federal regulations on the game.

Meanwhile, the expansion of online casino legislation has stopped, leaving operators wondering where their next growth phase will come from.

And the new entrants and the means of risking money such as sports predictions and the casinos of the competition disrupt the landscape – and draw a regulatory examination.

Several initiates of the industry said that it seemed that these problems, who have been preparing for a year or more, all approached the head in 2025. These main battlefields could define the future of the game industry and consumer protections.

Sports predictions could create a path to betting across the country

The prediction markets currently aspire a large part of the oxygen in the room, said five initiates in the industry.

These markets allow users of the country to put money on the potential winners of certain sporting events. Consumers can go to a website like Kalshi to “predict” that will win a series in the NBA qualifiers, for example.

These markets are managed by basic products and financial platforms, rather than by game operators. But Kalshi and some other companies offering sports predictions have received orders to stop and refrain this year game regulators in several states, including Nevada and New Jersey.

Kalshi brought the question before the courts, arguing that it is regulated by the Futures Trading Federal Commission, not these state game authorities.

Legal fights seem to follow the Kalshi path. The federal courts of Nevada and New Jersey have so far taken it from Kalshi and have blocked the ceasefish. This month, the CTFC also abandoned a previous appeal against the electoral predictions of the company, indicating that the Commission has a favorable opinion on the prediction markets generally.

“Kalshi won a few first laps, but he is still at the start of the fight,” said James Kilsby, chief analyst at Vixio, a regulatory technology company working with the game industry.

A big question is how the states argue. The answer will probably be linked to the amount of tax revenue they may lose, said Andrew Kim, a appeal and play litigant at Goodwin.

Kalshi and other sports prediction markets offer a very narrow product. Until now, these platforms have not offered parallades or propeller Paris.

“There is certainly a path where all this grows and becomes greater and becomes a real threat to the sports betting regime,” said Dustin Gouker, a consultant in the game industry closely following the prediction markets in his closing newsletter.

If sports predictions are authorized to continue, the prediction markets could create a path so that the playing companies operate in the 50 states. The Draftkings and Fanduel game operators have told investors on recent profits that they are interested in a prediction market product.

“The inhabitants of the industry at the moment are currently in moderate mode,” said Steve Ruddock, analyst and consultant of the game industry. “What must be concerned with the industry is to be left.”

The competition casinos are as a seat

Although the early momentum of sports predictions suggests that they could be there to stay, the future of the online competition is less certain.

These games, from sites like Chumba Casino and McLuck, may look like slot machines, table games or sports betting, but they allow players to play for free and win digital parts that can be exchanged for money. Users can generally buy and bet these parts, this is where the line between the competition and a regular online casino is really starting to blur.

Several states, including New York, Connecticut, Illinois and Montana, plan to ban them. The New York bill would make illegal to exploit, promote or support these companies.

Florida and some other states also considered bills rejecting these games, but these efforts have failed or blocked.

“The industry is very focused on competition operations,” said Kilsby. “This is really a major political problem of 2025 that was not really the case in previous years.”

This is a big problem in the industry, because these games are regulated differently from online casino games, which can make them available to a wider set of consumers. Some, like a Washington court, say they are illegal. Others argue that they simply innovate in a current game category: the competition.

Several recent proceedings have been filed against competition operators.

Rewrite the rules – and taxes – for game companies

Pursuits against playing companies also accumulated in 2025.

New cases are difficult marketing and promotional practices, such as VIP programs and certain bonus offers.

Baltimore City, for example, continued the Draftings and Fanduel in April for what he allegedly allegedly was “predatory practices”. The complaint called both “bonus bets” and VIP programs, which are loyalty games which, according to the complaint, “personalize the incentives to play”.

Customers continue the games of chance – cases like these are not new in industry all the time. But the “tidal wave” of the recent consumer dispute could be a bridgehead of a wider decline, Kim told Goodwin, who thinks that the industry will likely see more of these prosecution.

It is difficult to say what will be the lasting impact.

Kilsby said it is common for countries to experience “regulatory reset” after a period of “liberalization” in regulated games of chance. A similar trend took place in markets across Europe, some countries imposing strict restrictions on play advertisements, for example. He stressed that American states like New York, New Jersey and Illinois revisit their game regulations, but have said that we have not yet seen efforts that have “radically restored the landscape”.

“As it is a very universal dynamic for industry, it’s a very just question question: how is the same trend in North America?” Said Kilsby.

Some state regulators also increase taxes on gaming and sports betting companies, as Kilsby and Grove pointed out. The governor of New Jersey, for his part, proposed to hike the tax rate for the online game at 25%. The Governor of Ohio proposed to double his tax rate on 40%sports betting.