Massachusetts Authorities Concerned About Minors Interacting with Prediction Markets

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission fears that prediction markets are offering trading products to players younger than 21. State gambling authorities have long insisted that prediction markets offer what is essentially sports betting, even to players too young to gamble.

Prediction Markets Allow Younger Players to Trade Event Contracts

Jordan Maynard, chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, echoed growing concerns that prediction markets are targeting users under the age of 21 – Massachusetts’s legal gambling age. Unlike the gaming industry, prediction markets allow all players aged 18 or higher to participate.

Appearing on WCVB’s “On the Record” show, Maynard slammed prediction markets as an unregulated form of gambling. This comes amid broader pushback against the sector, despite prediction market operators’ claims that their CFTC-regulated trading products do not constitute gambling.

To top it all off, Maynard suggested that prediction market platforms’ lax approach to ID verification potentially allows even younger players to participate.

Maynard was not only concerned with the underage gambling prediction markets encourage, but also about the event contract platforms’ lack of responsible gaming tools. He also noted that event contract traders who experience harm cannot benefit from the same self-exclusion tools, such as BetBlocker, available to gambling enthusiasts.

Prediction Markets Are Still a Divisive Matter

The murky place of prediction markets within the broader regulatory ecosystem has been a point of contention for months. While the CFTC has accused state regulators of overstepping their authority in their attempts to regulate the sector, gambling regulators, tribal authorities, and some traditional gaming industry stakeholders alike have firmly rejected the prediction markets model.

Concerned experts have warned that CFTC purview effectively allows prediction markets to operate in all 50 states, creating an uneven playing field, considering that their traditional betting peers are regulated on a state-by-state basis.

At the same time, some have raised concerns that this model allows prediction market operators to offer event contracts even in states that do not allow sports betting, setting a dangerous precedent, since these states do not have sufficient problem gambling education and are not prepared for the potential addictive consequences of prediction products.