Prediction markets at 18

The age gap

In most states, you have to be 21 to bet on sports. On a prediction market you can stake money on the same game at 18.

That isn't an accident or a loophole someone forgot to close; it follows from how these platforms are regulated. Sportsbooks are licensed by states, and states set the age. Prediction markets are regulated federally, as exchanges for "event contracts", and the federal rules don't impose a gambling age.

The result is a three-year window, the same years many people spend at college or in a first job with a first paycheck and plenty of free time around games, where the most aggressive form of sports betting available is the one with the fewest protections.

What specialists are seeing

National coverage this year has been consistent. CNN reported in May that addiction experts were alarmed at college-age adults rushing to prediction-market sites. Fortune, CBS and others described the same pattern: young men, mostly under 30, drawn in by marketing that framed the platforms as a "money hack" or "side hustle" rather than betting. NPR's October reporting followed a man who had excluded himself from sportsbooks and relapsed through Kalshi.

Why "side hustle" is the hook

The framing matters because it removes the guard that "gambling" would put up.

• It sounds like skill. Reading the news, knowing the team, doing the research. Skill can be part of it. Still, over time, most accounts lose.
• It sounds like investing. You "buy" and "sell" contracts. But a contract on tonight's game settles tonight. That speed is what makes it compulsive.
• It sounds like money you're making. Wins get screenshotted; losses don't. The few big winners are real, and they're the ones in the ads.

Signs it's stopped being a side hustle

It's easy to tell yourself, or someone you love, that it's fine because it's "trading". These are the signs that matter more than the label:

• Chasing: putting more in to win back a loss, especially the same day.
• Secrecy: deleting the app before someone borrows the phone, or lying about balances.
• Borrowing: using credit, buy-now-pay-later or friends' money to fund positions.
• Mood riding on results: a bad Sunday ruins the week.
• Time: checking contracts in class, at work, at dinner, at 2 a.m.
• Failed limits: promising "only $20 tonight" and not keeping it.

Two or three of these is enough reason to act now, while the hole is still small.

If this is you

You don't need to decide whether you "have a problem" to make changes. If you're betting more than you meant to, chasing losses, hiding it, or feeling sick about money, these steps help regardless:

1. Exclude yourself from every prediction market you use (here's how for Kalshi), and from sportsbooks via your state list once you're old enough to have used them.
2. Block them on your phone. How to block gambling on iPhone.
3. Cut off the money: remove saved cards and ask your bank about a gambling block.
4. Tell one person. Not everyone. One.

If this is someone you love

Start with what you've seen, not with a label. "I've noticed you've been on your phone through every game and you seemed really down after Sunday. Are you okay with money?" goes further than "you have a gambling problem."

Keep the focus on secrecy and money rather than whether prediction markets "count" as gambling; that argument is a trap. Offer practical help, like sitting with them while they self-exclude or holding a Screen Time passcode, and look after yourself too. 1-800-GAMBLER supports family members as well as people who gamble.

Where it's heading

The Prediction Market Act of 2026, introduced in the Senate, would require self-exclusion programs and stronger age verification. Sports leagues have asked federal regulators to raise the age to 21. Courts are split over whether states can regulate sports contracts. Change may come, but it won't come tonight, and the protections you set up yourself work now.