A new consumer advocacy group called the Sports Traders Union is launching with hopes of adding a voice to the prediction market discourse that won’t be dismissed as a lobbying puppet. The group, unveiling Thursday, is primarily made up of professional bettors with prominent social media presences who actively use many of the top prediction market exchanges, including Kalshi.
The Sports Traders Union will push for reforms such as setting the prediction market participant age minimum at 21 (it is currently 18 on most apps).
The new group enters a sometimes combative industry. The Coalition for Prediction Markets, a trade association formed to defend exchange betting, often deflects criticisms of its members (including Kalshi and Robinhood) as coming from a threatened “casino lobby” with ulterior motives. Indeed, tribal groups and some traditional sportsbook operators have spent millions of dollars this year on lobbyists in an effort to stymie the rise of prediction markets—though the flow of money goes both ways.
At its inception, the Sports Traders Union’s list of demands addresses subjects like product design, marketing and addiction resources. It is also calling on prediction market companies to release data on retail user losses; data transparency has been an ongoing source of frustration among researchers.
