Casino Union Lobbies Congress To Curtail Prediction Markets
Jesse M. Cox Published 10/06/2026
Gwen Mills, president of Unite Here, the largest casino hospitality workers union in the USA, is calling on Congress to place limits on prediction market sites. Mills wants the federal government to halt these sites from offering sports-event contracts.
Mills argues that these trades too closely resemble the type of gambling offered by casinos. She believes that allowing them to continue to prosper will threaten union jobs in the regulated gaming industry. Unite Here is backing Senate Bill 4160, the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act, as a federal response to what they see as the unfettered proliferation of prediction markets across the nation.
The casino union is a powerful lobby
Unite Here is a hospitality union. It represents more than 100,000 workers who are employees of both tribal and commercial casinos. Across North America, the union counts a membership of 300,000 people in hotels, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textiles, distribution, laundry services, transportation, and airport operations. The casino portion of Unite Here includes housekeepers, bartenders, servers, cooks, and dishwashers.
Union President Gwen Mills, in her presentation to Congress, noted that prediction market sites are endangering the future of these casino employees by offering sports betting in disguise. She argued that sports-event contracts at prediction market sites are in violation of state gambling laws and tribal sovereignty.
“Prediction markets are putting good, union jobs in the gaming industry at risk," Mills presented in her statement to Congress. "Over 100,000 Unite Here members work in tribal and commercial casinos. The lawful, Tribal and state-regulated gaming industries have invested in creating good jobs in brick-and-mortar casinos and sportsbooks. Their livelihoods are now threatened by prediction markets conducting illegal sports betting in violation of tribal sovereignty and state laws across the country. We will not allow prediction markets to attack our jobs and turn back our progress.
“Congress must take immediate action to ban prediction markets from conducting sports betting and casino-style games."
The Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act is under consideration by Congress
Congress is currently considering the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act. Co-sponsors of this bipartisan bill are Democratic Senators Adam Schiff and Catherine Cortez Masto, and Republican Senator John Curtis.
"This is an urgent moment to reaffirm congressional intent that gambling is governed by Tribal and state authorities," Mills said in her statement. "We thank Senators Adam Schiff, Catherine Cortez Masto, and John Curtis for sponsoring the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act (S 4160), and we urge the Senate to pass this critically important legislation.”
Regulation of prediction markets is at issue
The core basis of the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act is an objective to change the regulator of sports-event contracts. It would move from the federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to state gambling authorities.
The bill would explicitly classify sports and casino-style event contracts on prediction market platforms as illegal gambling. It would shift oversight of this type of gaming offered by the prediction market sites entirely to individual states. All commercial gambling in the USA has its regulatory body at the state level.
“Sports prediction contracts are sports bets — just with a different name,” Schiff said in a statement introducing the bill. “These contracts are currently offered in all 50 states in clear violation of state and federal law.
“It’s time for Congress to step in and eliminate this backdoor, which violates state consumer protections, intrudes upon tribal sovereignty, and offers no public revenue."