Six Months in, the AGA Exodus Has Reshaped US Gambling’s Lobbying Landscape

Fractured Lobbying Panorama Augurs Competitors in Heightened Regulatory Setting

The AGA survey states that govt sentiment hit its highest stage for the reason that third quarter of 2022, with a 21.4% internet optimistic outlook throughout key enterprise indicators. The affiliation’s Gaming Situations Index – a composite of income, employment, wages, govt sentiment, and on line casino lodge occasion exercise – is up 1.5% year-over-year, and greater than 60% of the executives surveyed stated they anticipate greater revenues, stronger steadiness sheets, and elevated capital funding over the subsequent 6-12-month interval.

Nevertheless, the image modifications when the dialogue shifts to a quickly rising competitor. 81% of respondents recognized prediction markets providing sports activities occasion contracts as a “very vital” threat to the regulated gaming business. AGA president and CEO Invoice Miller framed prediction markets in his assertion as an encroachment on authorized, state-regulated, and tribal-regulated operators, characterizing sports activities occasion contracts as a type of unlawful sports activities betting that the business intends to maintain contesting.

This posture is per the AGA’s earlier method to actors like Kalshi and Polymarket, however its membership – and subsequently the lobbying clout – has considerably receded up to now half yr. The exits started on November 18, 2025, when Draftkings and Fanduel confirmed in separate statements that they’d relinquished their AGA memberships over misalignment with the commerce group’s stance on prediction markets. Each operators had introduced prediction-market plans throughout their Q3 2025 earnings calls – Draftkings by way of its Railbird acquisition and Fanduel through a Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee–regulated partnership with CME Group. Each merchandise at the moment are dwell: Draftkings Predictions launched December 19, 2025, throughout 38 states, whereas Fanduel Predicts launched three days later in 5 states with a phased nationwide rollout.

Three weeks later, Fanatics Betting and Gaming additionally confirmed its withdrawal, citing the identical purpose – a distinction of opinion on prediction markets following the December 3 launch of its Fanatics Markets product. The identical week, the Sports activities Betting Alliance introduced that Joe Maloney – the AGA’s senior vice chairman of strategic communications – was transferring over to steer the SBA as president and CEO. The crossover crystallized what had been an open query concerning the two commerce teams’ relationship.

The SBA represents 5 on-line operators – of which three actively provide prediction-market merchandise, one (BetMGM) opposes them, and one (bet365) has not acknowledged a place – and consequently doesn’t take a unified place on the vertical itself. The 2 teams now sit on reverse sides of the federal lobbying calculus on prediction markets. The structural end result is that the affiliation enters the again half of 2026 with no purely on-line operator remaining in its membership, whereas the SBA – led by a former AGA govt – now carries the lobbying weight for the nation’s largest on-line sportsbooks.

Not everybody broke ranks with the AGA due to prediction-market disputes. Notably, bet365 cited the commerce group’s deal with the retail on line casino business slightly than any prediction-market dispute as the explanation behind its departure from the affiliation in March. An AGA spokesperson informed SBC Americas this was “not a brand new improvement” and declined to specify timing.

The lobbying panorama these operators are getting into is extra crowded than it was a yr in the past. Kalshi spent $615,000 on federal lobbying in 2025, in line with OpenSecrets knowledge cited by CNBC, whereas Polymarket spent $360,000. Final winter, Kalshi helped launch the Coalition for Prediction Markets, a commerce group whose membership now consists of Coinbase, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Underdog. Per Sportico, the coalition expects to spend hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in 2026 to defend the CFTC-regulated framework for prediction markets. The membership composition represents a constituency with out precedent in US playing lobbying. Each Kalshi and Polymarket depend Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor.

The following federal stress level lands on Might 20, when the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Shopper Safety, Expertise, and Knowledge Privateness convenes its first listening to straight addressing prediction markets and their intersection with sports activities wagering. AGA president Invoice Miller, Tennessee Sports activities Wagering Council govt director Mary Beth Thomas, Integrity Compliance 360 co-founder and CEO Scott Sadin, and former Home Monetary Providers Committee chairman Patrick McHenry, now a senior advisor on the Coalition for Prediction Markets, are the confirmed witnesses on the time of writing.

Subcommittee chair Marsha Blackburn has indicated she intends to ship a suggestion framework earlier than the August recess, with the Senate Commerce and Banking Committees anticipated to reconcile competing approaches earlier than the 2026 midterms eat the legislative calendar.

A number of legislative autos are already in movement: the Occasion Contract Enforcement Act and the Prediction Markets are Playing Act would collectively limit sports-related contracts on federally regulated exchanges, with the Prediction Markets Safety and Integrity Act of 2026 additionally into account. In late April, senators unanimously voted to ban themselves and their employees from taking part in prediction markets.

The Might 20 listening to will mark the primary event on which the realigned lobbying ecosystem of the previous six months checks itself earlier than a Senate physique – and the primary time the AGA’s narrowed coalition argues its place with out the nation’s largest on-line sportsbooks on the desk.