A warning for your college teen: Beware addictive prediction markets | Opinion

This month, California parents will pack their 18-year-olds off to campuses across the state and worry about homesickness, roommates and that first shaky attempt at independence. But there is a new risk many parents don’t know exists: Their child can now place real-money bets on sports from a dorm room, despite California’s prohibition on online sports gambling.

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 California 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 an allowance and a favorite team, the distinction is meaningless. It is sports gambling.

Most parents assume the guardrails are in place. Almost 80% of voters in California believe that prediction markets should be required to follow the same state gaming regulations as licensed sportsbooks, according to Morning Consult polling conducted earlier this year.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has reached across the aisle to work with a bipartisan coalition that includes nearly every state AG in the country to file comments with federal regulators and legal briefs in ongoing lawsuits that seek to assert state authority over the controversial issue of online gambling. It is difficult to imagine any other issue this country faces that unites 44 state AGs across political stripes.

But prediction markets claim they cannot be regulated by states. Working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), they argue they are akin to the New York Stock Exchange but for sports. That has opened up sports gambling to anyone as young as 18, even in states like California that have not legalized sports betting.

These platforms are also reportedly targeting college campuses with aggressive marketing, sponsoring college clubs and paying student influencers to popularize them with peers. The National Collegiate Athletic Association 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 students heads off to campuses 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.”

Wagering on whether USC covers the spread on Saturday 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 a smart, financially inexperienced 18-year-old 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-twenties. That is why we do not let 18-year-olds walk into a casino. It is also why the American Psychiatric Association classifies gambling disorder alongside substance addictions, and why young men in college are among the highest-risk populations for developing one.

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.

Emily Stack is senior director of policy and executive director of Moms for America Action, a national movement of over half a million moms whose mission is to empower moms, promote liberty and raise patriots to heal America from the inside out.

This story was originally published August 21, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "A warning for your college teen: Beware addictive prediction markets | Opinion."