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The 2026 US legislative session is well underway and as always there's plenty of gambling and gambling adjacent bills heading through the corridors of power right across the country. And today on iGaming Daily we're rounding up several bills and we're dissecting what they tell us about the perception of both gambling and prediction markets in these very controversial times. We'll touch on some prediction market news as CalG has global ambitions and we're touching on yet another sports integrity scandal brewing in the US. So welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and today I'm joined by SBC America's senior reporter, Tom Nightingale. Tom, how's things? Yeah, not too bad. Back again. We only mentioned prediction markets by name twice in the intro, I think. obviously you can't, there's no escaping that as a news topic these days, but it'll be good to chat about a few different things today because it's been a pretty busy week really in North American gambling. It has, yeah. And as listeners might be able to tell, we're just going to have a little bit of a roundup about what's been going on in the US. And while we will inevitably discuss prediction markets because, well. When don't we? Frankly, when it comes to the US, we always discuss prediction markets, but it would be nice to actually talk about some good old fashioned gambling and it was things that everyone can definitely agree are gambling. Well, first of all, not necessarily the most positive story in the world, Tom, a bit of breaking news in the last day or so, bit of a sports integrity issue in the MLS now. We've had... college sports embroiled in controversy, the NBA most recently and most controversially perhaps, but it's happening in the MLS now. It appears that two former players have been banned for life. What's the story there? Yeah. Let's start light, shall we? With lifetime bans for gambling violations. Yeah. you know, more, and I think I've said this when we've been taught on previous episodes, when we've been talking about the major league baseball. pitch rigging scandal and the NBA stuff that you reference. Unfortunately, I think that more of these incidents are kind of going to surface because it's kind of the nature of the game with expanded sports betting and particularly the amount of monitoring and integrity work that all of the stakeholders do to uncover this activity. yeah, Major League Soccer, the latest, it's, I mean, it's had gambling related issues before, but not to this extent. So I mean, what's happened here really is I think last year MLS announced some kind of investigation. And then this week they confirmed that two former Columbus crew teammates, Derek Jones and Yoya Boa were basically, I mean, an integrity monitoring partner flagged to MLS some suspicious betting activity as these things usually, you know, that's how these things usually come to light. And a lengthy investigation determined that these two players Bet extensive was the word used engaged in extensive gambling on soccer, um, including on their own teams during the 2024 and 2025 seasons. So it's bound a couple of seasons betting on your own team, obviously kind of amplifies how big of a no-no it is, you know, gambling on gambling on sport while you're, while you're an athlete is, is, is one thing, but gambling on your own team, think, um, of levels up the issue rather. One incident that was cited by MLS was that both players bet that Derek Jones would be booked, would get a yellow card in a game, which he then did. And it was interesting because I mean, the league shared a note, you you never know as well, I will say how much of the actual, I don't want say how much of the truth, but how much of the information they have uncovered goes into the public press release, right? don't, I wouldn't necessarily suggest they give away the whole, they give away the whole farm in these public comments. But one thing they did note is that while there's obviously reason to believe that Jones and Yoboa probably shared information about betting and stuff with each other during this, such as, know, both betting on Jones to get to get a yellow card, which as football fans, we know, you know, if you really want to get a yellow card, it's not that hard to make sure that you get one. But MLS came out and stressed what most leagues stress in these situations, which is that there is no evidence that suggested that the betting activity affected the actual outcome of the game. I always find that a bit of a narrow plank to walk really, because how are you quantifying whether it's affected the outcome of the game? You could argue if you wanted to that, I think Derek Jones is a central midfielder, I think. You could argue that getting booked It means that, you know, he's got to be more, what affects the outcome of the game? Do know what mean? Where's the line? We could get very, very technical into this really, couldn't we? You know, how likely is he to go into a last ditch tackle to save a goal and those kinds of things. Yeah, I think it's very difficult to say that manipulating yellow cards has no impact on the outcome of the game. think that's quite technical and probably. probably a little bit above our pay grade on iGaming Daily. definitely goes to underline some of the themes that we've spoken about, maybe over the last two years really, not just sports integrity issues in the United States, but globally as well. We've seen it in Europe, high profile European players. There's an ongoing scandal in Turkey as well, let's not forget. But let's, let's just see what happens with that one really. And I guess it's a, another bonus for, for those integrity partners who, uh, you do seem to get a lot of credit for, for, for intervening on these and identifying these issues that do arise. But, um, last thing I'd say on it as well is that you meant you mentioned like the college betting scandal. I mean, that's going to rumble on and on, think, because that seems pretty widespread, but the most, you know, the sort of top line takeaway from this really is that now in 2024, Major league baseball band, a player to computer, McConnell for betting band in for life. And last year, the NBA band, John Tate Porter for life for betting this year. We're only in March MLS band two players for life for betting. You know, it's, it's, it's the double-edged sword where like people will say, look at, look, look at this terrible consequence of expanding sports betting. But you know, we will never really know how much stuff like this may or may not have been going on before that integrity monitoring was in place to. trap the activity. It's an issue, unfortunately, I'm sure we'll be revisiting at some point. certainly. Well, let's give a bit of positive news to those people who do blame the expansion of legalized sports betting. Like I said at the top of the show, the legislative session is well underway. It's not looking amazing. We're monitoring what's happening in Virginia very closely when it comes to online casino. uh The news line for us today really is that another failed attempt in Georgia to legalise sports betting, another bill's died there. We've had the ridiculous, the comedic in Georgia. Was it as dramatic this time as the soapbox derby debacle? I would say it was pretty, it was up there. I mean, it was... First of all, I will say that it made a bit more progress than we've seen in previous years here, like the idea of implementing a constitutional amendment and putting the issue of sports betting to the voters at the election did actually make it to the full House of Representatives floor in the state, whereas I think in previous years, it's stalled in committee and stuff. mean, if you're looking at small steps for progress, that's it. ah The bill would have allowed like 16 licenses, taxed it at I 27.5%. given licenses to pro sports teams, one to the lottery, which would have regulated it, you know, all these sorts of things that you see in other states. The real drama I would say came from that there is an always passionate Georgia representative Al Williams, who a lot of listeners on the US gambling side will likely be familiar with. uh He is often at the forefront of gambling legislation efforts. in Georgia. And he's also the president is to be the next president of the of Nicol G's the National Council of legislative legislators from gaming states. That's a mouthful, isn't it? He has supported gambling expansion in Georgia quite passionately in the past. And he said actually, in a he gave a nearly 10 minute long speech on the floor. um I think it was last I think it was last Friday. um And he said during that speech that he supports the idea of sports betting, but he was a somewhat surprising, I guess, um dissenting voice to this particular effort. And his main concern was that there hasn't been anywhere near the depth and breadth of discussion that's needed for a proposal like legalizing online sports betting. think he seemed fairly irate that he wasn't, and eh fellow members of the caucus weren't consulted in more detail. Um, he gave a couple of very, you we always like it when we get nice, nice sound bites. He said, uh, with this conversation, you know, should have started in January, but it ended up being sort of like a two hour conversations based for a few days. We went from zero to 100 degrees and I didn't have a chance to take my winter clothes off was my favorite quote of the, of the speech. Um, so it's this thing again that we see a lot, you know, like legalizing sports betting is not easy if it was, you know, I know that 30 something states have, have brought sports betting in, but So many efforts die every year and it's for many many reasons and one of them is the fact that there are so many facets of this that need to be discussed and considered. And how do you do that when you're a group of legislators towards the end of a legislative session, when you've got hundreds, if not 1000 bills on your plate, ranging from, you know, all corners of society? How are you supposed to give the idea of legalizing sports betting the credence it deserves? Because we've seen a lot of states legalize it. And then a couple of years later, there's some bills in play in various states this year where clearly lawmakers are having some level of regret about the way in which they legalize sports betting. So I think it's just difficult. I mean, we've made a little bit of progress. I think that was the real momentum swinger is once Al Williams sort of said, I am not on board with this measure, the mood kind of changed there. Georgia is quite a difficult state to do this in anyway. We know that essentially it's going to take a constitutional amendment to do so in Georgia. like you say, Tom, one or two other things happening in the world that might affect the everyday lives of people in Georgia than whether or not we can bet legally on the NBA. one final point I will say on this, because I know we've bounced it around, is that let's talk very briefly about the elephant in the room. Georgia is one of the biggest states that doesn't have legal sports betting. You've got California, you've got Texas, Florida has the Seminole hard rock monopoly. than Georgia in terms of population. In the meantime, Georgians can bet on sports, can't they? Let's be honest. You load up Kalshi, you load up DraftKings predictions. I think they're live in Georgia. I should probably check. But you load up any of these prediction market sites and you can wager who's going to win a Georgia college basketball game or who's going to win in the NFL this week, during NFL season. Sports betting has always sports betting was already there through offshore and unlicensed sports books. People didn't necessarily know where to find them. But if you really wanted to find it, you could find it. Now everybody knows anybody who's paid any attention whatsoever knows that you can bet on sports on Cauchy. So the question then becomes how much should that accelerate a state's desire to legalize and regulate sports betting? Does that mean that know, Al Williams saying we didn't give it the proper discussion. An interesting question, I think, is whether the fact that Cal she and co now offer sports everywhere, has that completely changed the nature of the game in terms of legislative discussion of legalizing state regulated sports betting, you know, the issue is just impossibly complex for a three minute chat during a section of a podcast. Well, you've teed us up very nicely for a break, Tom, and you you broke the seal. So we'll come back and we'll talk all about prediction markets, shall we? All right, Tom, let's talk about prediction markets. And if we have time at the end, we might talk about a bill that's going and doing the rounds in Massachusetts, because I do feel like that is quite interesting. But prediction markets, look, you broke the seal. You let the elephant out in the room. And now there's so much prediction markets news that SBC Americas is just, we're not We're not covering every single bit of news anymore, guys. We're doing a weekly roundup of the biggest stories essentially of what's happening in the world of prediction markets. Just a little bit of an editorial discussion here. What made you take that decision and how has oh prediction markets fundamentally changed the way that you report on the industry? There's too much news, That's my answer. Um, you know, I will keep this brief because I do, I could go on, you know, but the problem is, like this week already, for example, I probably days blur as well. I'm pretty sure that this week already at the time of reporting, we've had like two major court case updates, which we might touch on and bet, you know, one in Ohio and one in one in Michigan related to calcium polymarket respectively. Like these are obviously headline news stories that are directly relevant to the idea of prediction markets as sports betting. therefore gambling, you know, but we get such a ridiculous influx of prediction markets news. There's a reason that there are newsletters specifically dedicated, you know, in the industry to prediction markets news that go out daily with item after item after item of, you know, somewhat relevant news. And keeping up with it is just frankly, very, very difficult. I've said for a while now that reporting being a gambling reporter, like the spread of prediction markets into sports, which has really happened in what the last 12 months, I how she launched sports in time for March Madness 2025. It's really been 12 months has doubled, if not more, the scope of the stuff that we have to try to cover on a daily basis. And so much of it is relevant, but not necessarily headline relevant, but you has underlying relevance to what may or may not happen next. So it's really, to be honest, a case of from an, from an editorial point of view, covering what you can cover in depth, but making sure that little tidbits of news on missed by our audience really. So I guess it's an effort conservation measure really. Will here's something that might have to take up a story of its own or if it's not on SBC Americas, it most certainly will be on the radar of the SBC Noticias Brazil team because Calchi is going live in Brazil. First of all, Tom, could you just tell us a little bit more about it is Calcia doing heading into Brazil and why is it expanding globally when it has so much sort of domestic attention at the moment, particularly on the legal and regulatory front? First up, shout out to my colleagues on the SBC Noticias Brazil team. Welcome to the pain chamber, my friends. It's downhill from here, prediction markets wise. While the US stuff goes on, you know, let's not forget that the US uh litigation and the regulatory stuff. is almost entirely maybe not a Congress because they're in Congress because they're concerned about, you know, insider trading on really serious stuff, war and, you know, terrorism and government policy. But, you know, from a gambling industry perspective, the whole whole kerfuffle has been about sports, right? And remains to be that's the that's the key issue that's up for debate in court cases is sport event contracts. While that rumbles on Koushi. I mean, they position the Brazil launch as focusing on financial and economic events, inflation rate changes, interest rates, like this sort of stuff. What they actually roll out and lean into remains to be seen because we've had similar rhetoric before that it's not about sports. But I think it's another case of sort of rushing into a bit of a gap really. you know, while you are able to do this, do it from their point of view, frankly. You've also got a factor in the fact that Kelshe, you know, the most prominent Kelshe spokesperson is co-founded Tarek Mansour, right, but the Kelshees, his co founder Luana Lopez Lara, is, she is Brazilian. That is probably an impact on choosing Brazil. There's also the fact that Brazil, a very young sports betting market that's still frankly, I would say kind of finding its feet as a regulated sports betting market, what launched January 1st of last year. So we're talking 14 months or so. I believe the SBC Noticias Brazil team. If they listen to this might cringe if I'm getting information wrong here through my lack of Brazil, specific knowledge. believe the Brazil Brazilian security is an exchange commission or equivalent kind of overseas financial contracts and stuff like that. But again, I think similar in a way that is similar to the US in Brazil is that there is no real firm framework for what these should or should not look like. What I would even say maybe what is or is not allowed. I'm not sure there's really firm, a firm framework there. It's something frankly that they're going to have to grapple with in real time. Because if Cal she's going in there and is going to start launching, even if it really is just economic contracts, it's a whole different kettle of fish, isn't it? To the state regulated sports betting that you've, you've only just legalized and launched. Um, good luck, uh, Leo and team. Um, I'm sure you'll, you'll enjoy covering. covering what we've been covering on SBC Americas and the podcast in recent times. But Tom, I'll bring you back to your comfort zone and back up to the US because you mentioned earlier that there have been some court judgments in the last week, I think in Ohio and Michigan. I think not great news for Cauchy as it enters Brazil because it hasn't been eh issued of preliminary injunctions in those two states in particular. em Could just give us an update of what's happened in these court cases and what it tells us about the state's versus Kalsha's sporting ambitions? so I mean, will preface this with, know, referring back. We did a great podcast with IMGL president Mark Dunbar recently, and he didn't exactly say don't pay any attention at all to state litigation, but he's very much of the expert opinion. This is heading for the Supreme Court. It's going to be trialed kind of. to be judged kind of net new in Supreme Court. There's not really going to be a Supreme Court judge leaning on mixed state rulings. to an extent, it's sort of just noise. But I think it's important to keep track of how states are leaning. What's particularly interesting, I would say, in the Kalshi and Ohio, that case, obviously the case continues. This isn't a firm judgment that Kalshi must shut down permanently in Ohio, but it's basically saying we don't judge said, I don't think that you have the right to block the state from enforcing gambling laws against you, given that you are offering what is tantamount to state regulated sports betting under federal oversight. That's kind of the very brief summary of that. What's interesting about that is that all of, know, Kalshi, as you would expect, appeals all of these rulings when a ruling goes against it, goes to an appeals court. Ohio is part of the Sixth Circuit. in the US appeals court. Another state that is part of the sixth circuit is Tennessee. A Tennessee judge, can't remember when it was now a couple of weeks ago, actually granted Kalshi a preliminary injunction, read the situation very differently. So the fact that within the sixth circuit, you have a uh very clear split opinion between states is a really intriguing wrinkle in terms of how this might all play out at the federal appeals court level. Again, is it just noise? Kind of, but the wind certainly seemed to be blowing more against prediction markets than they were at first. We in Cauchy won a few decisions in, I think, Nevada and New Jersey early on. But the Tennessee, the Tennessee ruling notwithstanding, but the momentum seems to be with states really. And we've seen states start to go on the offensive more right by suing first, which is what Michigan did in the other case that you referenced Michigan. uh polymarket. Michigan preemptively sued Cauchy without sending a cease and desist letter. Polymarket then turned around, looked at that and said, we think that that indicates that there is clear and imminent danger that Michigan is going to try and do the same thing to us. So we're going to sue Michigan before they can sue us. This is the kind of stuff we're working with, right? This is why we have a prediction markets roundup and we don't try and write all of these stories. As for what it tells us big picture, I think it tells us that judges are maybe feeling a bit sympathetic towards states. States have changed their plan of attack slightly to go on the offensive in court first before sending like a cease and desist letter that can effectively act as a warning to these companies and then can result in the state being sued as we've seen in other cases. But you know, we're going to the Supreme Court. It's just a case of when. Until then, I'm sure whoever ends up trying this at the Supreme Court will take note of what's happened at the state level. But this is kind of a drop in the litigation ocean, I think, really. It's just that we had a couple of fairly noteworthy updates back to back. Frankly, by the time we finish recording this, there may well be another one. I think if anyone who doesn't necessarily... have a huge amount of knowledge on prediction markets, wants to get up to date on what's happening. I think that's the key line really is go back. I would heartily recommend listening to that episode we did with Mark Dunbar a couple of weeks back. But essentially the line is, this is going to go to the Supreme Court within the next maybe 18 months, two years. And until then, we'll just have to see what happens and go through all the necessary steps in between. em Thanks for joining me today, there's a lot of news going on in the US at the moment, eh notwithstanding prediction markets but just in the gambling space as well. Thanks a lot for joining me today and taking time out of your schedule and to our listeners, thank you very much for tuning in to today's episode of iGaming Daily and come back tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news.