Leagues Push Lifetime Bans for Bettors Who Threaten Athletes
The NFL, MLB, MLS, NBA and NHL, plus their players' associations, want gambling regulators in 35 states and Washington, D.C. to hand lifetime betting bans to anyone verified to have threatened or harassed athletes, coaches, officials or their families.
That ask arrived in a Sept. 15 letter signed by all five leagues and each union. The groups called the problem an "escalating threat" and pushed for uniform rules and legislative safeguards across the states. Losing bettors, they wrote, too often aim threatening messages at players and their families through social media. Sometimes they do it in person.
Three parts make up the proposal. Mandatory lifetime bans for anyone verified to have harassed or threatened athletes, coaches, officials, team personnel or their families. A cross-operator framework letting leagues, teams and players report verified threats to regulators and law enforcement. And a requirement that sportsbooks monitor, flag and ban accounts tied to abusive behavior. "The safety and well-being of players, coaches, officials and their families must always come before a wager," the letter states.
Ohio, West Virginia, Louisiana and Wyoming already have anti-harassment provisions on the books, the leagues noted. Some operators haven't waited on regulators. BetMGM has rolled out policies to ban bettors who harass athletes. For affiliates, the practical read is simple. Player-facing content that whips up anger over a bad beat is a compliance risk now, not just a tone problem.
The letter landed in the middle of a crowded week for prediction markets. In Connecticut, Underdog filed a federal lawsuit on Sept. 15 against Attorney General William Tong, Department of Consumer Protection Commissioner Bryan Cafferelli and Gaming Division Director Christopher Gilman. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, the complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and argues the state is trying to "unlawfully" regulate or shut down Underdog's offering of derivatives contracts on federally regulated markets. Nine prediction-market companies got cease-and-desist orders from Connecticut on Sept. 10, Underdog Predict among them. Novig, ProphetX, Gemini and Webull have since answered the department and are talking with regulators about next steps, Cafferelli said Monday. Coinbase and Kalshi are already in litigation with the state, and Robinhood asked last week to intervene in the CFTC's suit against Connecticut.
Kalshi is appealing its Iowa loss. The exchange filed a notice of interlocutory appeal on Sept. 15, after U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher denied its motion for a preliminary injunction on Sept. 8. Next stop: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Kalshi's record on appeal is mixed. It won before the Third Circuit in its New Jersey dispute, then lost before the Ninth and Tenth circuits in cases involving Nevada and Utah.
Tribal gaming leaders met CFTC Chairman Michael Selig on Monday for a private roundtable in Washington, D.C., moderated by Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association chairman Matthew Morgan. Seventeen organizations representing Tribal nations attended. On the agenda: recent CFTC rulemaking, sports and political event contracts, prediction-market advertising on Tribal lands and agricultural markets. Morgan said the CFTC's actions undermine the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act by letting illegal Class III gaming encroach on Tribal sovereignty and by threatening revenue that funds Tribal government programs. The OIGA also said the roundtable doesn't satisfy the government-to-government consultation tribes are seeking, and expects the CFTC's prediction-market rulemaking to generate more litigation.
Texas lawmakers took up the question Tuesday in a Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing, following Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's directive earlier this year to examine whether federal law is being used to sidestep the state's gambling prohibitions. American Gaming Association vice president Tres York told the panel that state gambling laws should apply to event contracts. Kalshi head of enforcement and legal counsel Robert DeNault countered that contracts traded on federally regulated exchanges are swaps, not gambling. Texas raises the stakes because traditional sports betting remains illegal there.
On the tax side, the House Ways and Means Committee is weighing a package Wednesday that would restore the ability to deduct 100% of wagering losses against gambling winnings, reversing the current 90% cap. The provision mirrors the bipartisan FULL HOUSE Act from Reps. Max Miller and Steven Horsford and would apply retroactively to the 2026 tax year. Under the cap, a bettor with $100,000 in winnings and the same in losses can deduct only $90,000, leaving a tax bill even with no net profit. The measure still needs to clear Congress.
State bills are moving too. New Jersey's A5210 would widen the gambling exclusion system to let certain third parties seek another person's exclusion, and would require anyone asking to come off a self-exclusion list to review educational material on gambling risks and support resources first. It covers casino gambling plus racetrack, account, exchange and fixed-odds wagering. In Illinois, Rep. Travis Weaver filed HB5814, which combines his push to kill the state's prediction-market tax with a rollback of its new daily fantasy sports framework. The bill would repeal the exchange-wager transaction tax of 1.75% on a platform's first five million exchange wagers in a fiscal year and 3.5% on each one after that. It would also scrap DFS licensing and tax rules, including language stating that qualifying fantasy contests are not gambling and shielding participants from gambling convictions.
Polymarket keeps adding executives. CEO Shayne Coplan announced Tuesday that Collin McKinney Hill has joined as vice president of operations, a week after Warren Jenson came aboard as CFO. Hill previously worked at DoorDash and Bridgewater Associates and will work across the company's operations as it expands. FanDuel and Amazon, meanwhile, are extending their betting integration to Thursday Night Football as Prime Video opens its 2026 NFL slate. FanDuel customers can link accounts to Prime Video and follow eligible wagers while watching, with personalized updates on linked bets. No bets can be placed through the streaming platform itself. The leagues' letter now sits with regulators in 35 states and Washington, D.C., and the operators named in Connecticut's cease-and-desist orders face a choice: open talks with the Department of Consumer Protection or join Underdog in federal court.