The Nevada Council on Problem Gambling is cutting ties with the National Council on Problem Gambling over a $2 million investment the NCPG took from prediction market operator Kalshi.
Trey Delap, executive director of the Nevada council, said the partnership undermines efforts to prevent and treat problem gambling. The split turns on age limits. Most states require 21+ for sports betting, while prediction platforms such as Kalshi let users trade contracts from 18. The NCPG backs the 21+ threshold and still accepted money from an operator working with a younger audience.
Delap said activity on Kalshi is gambling in substance. 'Positions' and 'trades' are euphemisms, he said, and the risks are the same, suicides among them. Kalshi is banned in Nevada, where federally regulated prediction markets count as gambling. The state wants geoblocking from the platform and has threatened fines of $120,000 a day.
After months of talks the Nevada council moved to suspend its NCPG membership. The NCPG refused. Delap framed the disagreement as a fundamental divergence over how to handle new gambling risks, not a quarrel with one company. Michigan made the same move, leaving the NCPG in July; Henry Miller, executive director of the state's gambling regulator, judged the partnership weakens state authorities against Kalshi.
NCPG executive director Heather L. Maurer defends the Kalshi money as a contribution to harm minimisation. Kalshi, Polymarket and Crypto.com are litigating with authorities in more than a dozen states over sports event contracts, whether those contracts are gambling, and where state law collides with Commodity Futures Trading Commission requirements.
