TLDR
- A House subcommittee will hold a hearing on Wednesday at 10:15 am Eastern on sports gambling at colleges.
- No witness list has been released, and prediction markets are not named in the hearing materials.
- Kalshi lets users trade at 18, while most legal US sports betting requires users to be 21.
- Panel chair Rep. Burgess Owens represents Utah, where the attorney general has charged Kalshi’s co-founders.
- Several panel members have backed bills or letters targeting prediction markets and prop bets.
A House panel will hold a hearing next Wednesday on sports betting among college students. The session is titled “The Rise of Sports Gambling on College Campuses.”
The Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development will host the event at 10:15 am Eastern. The subcommittee is part of the House Committee on Education and Workforce.
The hearing will take place at 2175 Rayburn House Office Building. It is scheduled to stream on the committee website and on YouTube.
No witness list has been released. Beyond the title, the committee has not said what topics it plans to cover.
Prediction Markets and the Age Gap
Prediction markets are not named in the hearing materials. But the age rules at some of these platforms could draw questions from lawmakers.
Kalshi allows people as young as 18 to trade on its platform. Most legal sports betting in the US requires users to be at least 21. The prediction market Novig sets its minimum age at 21.
Many college students are between 18 and 20 years old. Under current rules, those students can trade on some prediction markets but are below the minimum age at most legal US sportsbooks.
The subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Burgess Owens, a Utah Republican. He is a former college football and NFL player. He did not seek reelection.
Utah has been at the center of a legal fight to stop prediction markets from offering sports event contracts in the state. The Utah attorney general has filed criminal charges against Kalshi’s co-founders.
All forms of gambling are illegal in Utah. Kalshi and other federally regulated prediction market operators argue that federal law overrides state gambling laws.
Who Else Sits on the Panel
Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, chairs the House Agriculture Committee. That committee oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates prediction markets. It held a hearing on the agency in April.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner, a Washington Republican, introduced the PROTECT Student Athletes Act in 2025. The bill would ban prop bets on the individual performances of student athletes. It would not ban betting on college games.
At the time, Baumgartner said sports gambling on college campuses “has surged in recent years.” He also pointed to rising harassment of college athletes and cases of athletes being pressured to throw games for money.
In August, Baumgartner introduced a bill to ban wildfire betting on prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi. He has said technology has “turbo-charged the growth of prediction markets and online gambling.”
Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican, once chaired the Florida House Select Committee on Gaming. He also worked in the gambling industry, including with Harrah’s Entertainment.
Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina is the top Democrat on the subcommittee. She was an original co-sponsor of the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026.
Reps. Donald Norcross of New Jersey and Joe Courtney of Connecticut, both Democrats, also sit on the panel. They signed a bipartisan letter asking that military personnel be barred from trading on prediction markets tied to national security issues.
