‘This is an all-out war’: Inside the casino industry’s fight to stop prediction markets | CNN Business

It’s been a rough summer on the Strip. In addition to sizzling 115-degree days, Las Vegas’ famous resorts and casinos are plodding through a tourism slump. This year, a new and possibly existential threat has emerged: the meteoric rise of prediction markets. Prediction platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket – where users wager on sports, politics, culture, and the weather – have transformed from a niche space for superfans to a seemingly ubiquitous multibillion-dollar industry. With the Trump administration’s blessing, these startups are structured as financial markets for trading, not casinos or sportsbooks for gambling. Under this system, prediction companies bypass state gaming boards and instead get licensed by an obscure federal commodity regulator to offer “event contracts.” This setup also means they aren’t taxed like gambling, which generated nearly $18 billion in revenue for states last year. Analysts blame Vegas’ slowdown on rising consumer costs, not prediction sites. But the casinos aren’t taking chances. They mobilized for “all-out war,” and have now become a driving force in the nationwide fight to rein in prediction markets, according to nearly