Will the present debate over prediction markets and their place as unlicensed sportsbooks find yourself with a Federal entry into the US gaming market? That’s a prediction that MGM Resorts Worldwide CEO and president William J. Hornbuckle IV made on the the East Coast Gaming Congress in Atlantic Metropolis final week.
Hornbuckle was one in all a number of outstanding gaming executives who spoke on the prediction market scenario and its place as an existential menace to regulated sportsbooks. The collective opinion of the friends on the keynote panel was twofold. On the one hand, they often agreed that regulating prediction markets is the jurisdiction of the states and must be framed as a states rights challenge. Then again, they often agreed that if the states and the trade can’t get a deal with on prediction markets quickly, the problem will doubtless turn into an entry level for a federal takeover of gaming laws.
“It has at all times been, it must be and continues to be a states’ rights challenge,” Hornbuckle stated in an interview with iGamingBusiness after the panel.
Invoice Miller, the President of the influential American Gaming Associaton (AGA) regarded on the challenge by means of the lens of the way it impacts efforts to combat downside playing. In any case, prediction markets aren’t required to assist efforts to curb downside playing the identical means regulated sportsbooks and casinos are. “For these of us who’re in command of guaranteeing that the general public believes we’re performing in a accountable method, and we are literally in contact with the weather of accountable gaming, it’s onerous for me to see this as something aside from a menace,” he informed the panel.
What’s clear to gaming trade observers is that the prediction market challenge isn’t going away anytime quickly. What’s much less clear is whether or not or not prediction market operators will probably be allowed to proceed to function as unlicensed sportsbooks.
