Emily Stack is the senior director of policy and the executive director of Moms for America Action, a movement whose mission is to empower mothers, promote liberty and raise patriots to heal America.
Eighteen-year-old freshmen may not be old enough to place legal sports bets in Delaware. But, this fall, they could nonetheless walk into their dorm rooms, pull out their phones and make the same wagers anyway.
So-called “prediction markets” — popular platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket — let users as young as 18 all across the country gamble on everything from sports to what word might be mentioned at a press conference.
It doesn’t matter what the laws are in Delaware or any other state. Unlike traditional online sports-betting apps, these platforms don’t abide by state age minimums nor do they provide problem-gambling resources to prevent addiction.
Instead, these companies insist they are federally regulated financial exchanges — investment tools — not sportsbooks. But, for a college freshman with a Venmo balance and a favorite team, the distinction is meaningless. It is sports gambling.
Most parents assume guardrails are in place. Delaware requires sports bettors to be at least 21 and requires online wagers to be placed while the bettor is physically present in the state. Its rules also require age and identity verification for real-money online wagering. Yet prediction markets offer sports contracts to 18-year-olds.
Prediction markets claim they cannot be regulated by states. Working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, they argue that they are akin to the New York Stock Exchange but for sports. That has opened up sports gambling to anyone as young as 18, including college students.
These platforms are also reportedly targeting college campuses with aggressive marketing, sponsoring college clubs and paying student influencers to popularize them with peers. The NCAA has called for the CFTC to pause prediction market offerings on college sports until safeguards are implemented, but that request has fallen on deaf ears.
As your student heads off to campus this fall, they will face hundreds of betting opportunities every week and an advertising blitz already ramping up. Freshmen will see ads during game breaks in dorm lounges. They will watch classmates open the apps between lectures. And they will be told, over and over, that they are not gambling — they are “investing.”
That framing is the most dangerous part. Investing is about ownership, long-term growth and building a future. Wagering on whether the Blue Hens cover the spread is not investing, no matter how sleek the interface. Wrapping a bet in the language of Wall Street does not change what it is; it only makes it easier for smart, financially inexperienced 18-year-olds to talk themselves into it.
The science is clear. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that governs impulse control and long-range judgment, is not fully developed until the mid-20s. That is one reason most states with legal sports betting set the minimum age at 21. It is also why the American Psychological Association classifies gambling disorder alongside of substance addictions and why young men in college are among the highest risk populations for developing one.
As you zip up that last suitcase, smooth the comforter one final time and hug your child goodbye, you’ll be thinking about all the things you hope for him or her — that he or she will find lifelong friends, stay safe, work hard and make choices that lead to a bright future.
We can’t walk with our children every step of the way, but we can have honest conversations about the world they’re entering. This fall, make sure one of those conversations is about sports prediction markets and the risks of conflating gambling with investing.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
