One of the interesting arms of Texas betting news is not the possibility of legal options coming in 2027 potentially. Lawmakers and other politicians keep trying to come up with something. In the meantime, there is a continuing battle between Texas and the United State government over prediction markets. This battle has been raging for some time.
This battle is not what bettors or anyone were expecting. Most assumed that online betting sites were going to be in big states like Texas by now. However, legal battles seem to be the “soup of the day”. Over the past few months, Attorney General Dan Patrick keeps tussling with the United States and the CFTC in particular. However, the reality is little success has been achieved.
Quite a few experts believed that this was going to the Supreme Court no matter what. Think about it this way. Legal sports betting almost counted on the states versus federal tussle only escalating from here. Closing limits and loopholes have been talked about by so many states. California wants to curb the prediction markets and go further. Their attorney general is trying to flex his muscles.
The road remains full of Texas mud. It is murky and expected to get uglier and uglier as the summer transitions into fall. For bettors in the state of Texas, one of the loopholes to be closed might be increasing the age to gamble from 18 to 21.
The Supreme Court expects to be the ultimate decider in matters like this. Yes, the Attorney General of Texas and others have jumped into the fray. Imagine the reality that prediction markets could be everywhere. For a state that seems to love the juice err buzz, this is big. Naturally, while this is not Las Vegas level, Texas has something here with could mushroom across many more states.
As Dan Patrick remarked, “This is so, so far down the road that I can truly understand why state lawmakers are saying, ‘OK, great, Dan Patrick, it’s on the interim charge, thank you, we’ll keep our eye on this,’ but at this point it’s got to play out in the courts,” Coleman said.
The fact that Texas keeps fighting this is at least telling. Obviously, this is only the opening salvo and anyone and everyone will get the fight together. California and several other states keep trying to pass and gain ways to block prediction markets from making too much of a dent in their states. Everything is bigger in Texas and so are these battles.
Again, Texas legal betting news keeps on kicking up the spice level to ghost and maybe beyond. Remember that whole Brandon Sorsby mess? That is more or less over. Unlike prediction markets where one expects the Supreme Court to hear a case on this later in 2027 or maybe 2028. Either way, no one is going away here. Neither is CFTC and certainly Texas for that matter.
The one reason why Texas Tech still feels like it has done nothing wrong is simple. Hey, people are not astonished that the second biggest state in the nation simply saw a school flexing its muscle. Again, their assertion is the other schools did not catch this. If various deposit methods became legal, that might have prevented this whole thing from snowballing in the first place.
Here lies the problem. Big 12 schools, Big 10 schools, SEC schools, and more are not going to be happy with this. Period! Thankfully this never got to the Texas Court of Appeals. However, let’s be honest here. This goes beyond Texas Tech and always has. Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick, and whatever government entities are not going to take the stain away.
Unfortunately, Cody Campbell believes that Texas Tech did nothing wrong or him for that matter. Imagine Campbell coming right out and saying what if I did all of what the media alleges. Okay, Campbell feels he could talk to Paxton and such. Again, the issue feels mute at this point. Then, there is going back to those prediction markets again.
Yes, what can be done about prediction markets by Texas? This is something that can have some impacts. Again, Brandon Sorsby is done and over. However, there is one big thing that Texas legislators and such might be able to do here. Think advertising. “Their advertising really is a pretty significant insight into where they feel like they’re pulling their customer base from,” Jonathan Covey said.
Now Covey is far from a legislator. He merely is a director of a Texas advocacy group called Texas Values. However, what he has to say does carry some influence. Do not forget besides sports, there is war and elections that are often bet on by, you guessed it, Texans.
“Elections, they’re not just economic activity, they’re core functions of our state sovereignty,” Covey said. “We have Penal Code chapter 47 that says election betting is illegal, and prediction markets have been trying to sort of relabel that activity.”
Some bettors are truly uncertain on what really will happen. It does seem states like California and Texas have tried numerous measures and ways to battle prediction markets but to no avail. The problem with Texas is their own legislators have been getting fined. Kalshi has fined three this summer alone. Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton know the in-house problem means that the prediction market battle is more likely to go to the Supreme Court.
