Pennsylvania lawmakers are weighing HB 2711, a proposal that would create a regulatory framework for prediction markets in the state without relying on a tax-based approach.
According to Gaming Intelligence, Rep. Tarik Khan introduced the bill on Wednesday for platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket. The measure would set consumer protections and integrity rules for the products, in a way its backers compare with sports betting oversight.
Those rules would require self-exclusion programmes, systems to detect manipulation by employees with access to non-public information, and notice to the state about possible insider trading. Traders would have to be at least 21, and the bill would bar contracts on high school or minors’ sports, on individual health status, and on death markets including assassinations, attempts and mass-casualty events.
The bill would also say a provider may not offer a prediction market in Pennsylvania if its liquidity provider or market maker knowingly engages in gaming as a business. Covers reported that this restriction would likely prevent DraftKings and FanDuel from running their prediction-market platforms in the state.
HB 2711 would allow civil fines of up to $10,000 for each violation, with penalties of up to $50,000 for persistent breaches involving market making, participation exclusions and non-public information trading. Individual liability penalties could exceed $50,000 or twice the amount of profits gained or losses avoided. The Pennsylvania attorney general could seek a court order barring an operator, and defying such an order would carry a fine of $1 million a day.
The bill has 20 Democratic and four Republican sponsors. It has been referred to the Consumer Protection, Technology & Utilities Committee for a reading and vote.
Separately, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board submitted comments to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ahead of that agency’s proposed rules on prediction markets. The board said prediction markets are sports wagering offered in violation of state law and warned that they have not adequately addressed underage gambling.
Executive Director Kevin F. O’Toole wrote that allowing designated contract markets to masquerade as unregulated sportsbooks has endangered young adults. He said the CFTC’s own regulations, enacted nearly 15 years ago, prohibit certain prediction markets and are consistent with the legislative history of the law.
O’Toole said the landscape had deteriorated, citing prediction-market contracts on whether someone will appear at the Met Gala, who will win Survivor season 50, and whether President Trump will say “Make Iran Great Again” during April 2026 on Kalshi. The board said it is also running an awareness campaign, What’s Really at Stake, about the consequences of gambling under 21 and the ease of access on prediction-market sites and illegal offshore sites.
The board oversees 18 land-based casinos, online casino games, retail and online sports wagering, video gaming terminals at qualified truck stops and online fantasy sports contests. A Congressional Research Service brief says prediction markets are exchange platforms that offer binary event contracts, and that sports-specific markets have sparked jurisdictional fights over whether they fall under state gambling laws, tribal gaming laws, derivatives rules or both.
In March, the CFTC said in the Federal Register that it was seeking comment on the statutory core principles and regulations governing prediction markets and event contracts. It defined prediction markets as CFTC-registered designated contract markets or swap execution facilities offering event contracts, and said it had seen a significant rise in event contracts and in the diversity of underlying events since 2021.
