The Texas Medical Association is urging state lawmakers to impose a minimum age of 21 for prediction market users, arguing that platforms offering event contracts can expose younger people to many of the same behavioral risks associated with traditional gambling.
The medical group adopted a policy recommending that access to prediction markets be limited to people aged 21 and older, alongside tighter rules governing how the platforms can advertise to younger audiences. The proposal comes as prediction markets continue to expand in the US, including in states such as Texas where conventional online sports betting remains illegal.
Prediction markets allow users to buy contracts tied to the outcome of future events, including sports contests, elections and economic developments. Platforms operating as federally regulated derivatives exchanges fall under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than state gambling regulators, creating an ongoing dispute over where financial trading ends and gambling begins.
Doctors Seek Stronger Protections for Younger Users
The Texas Medical Association said younger users may be especially vulnerable because adolescents and young adults are more prone to risk-taking and can have weaker impulse control.
The organisation cited research showing that more than 35% of boys aged 11 to 17 had gambled during the previous year. It also pointed to separate research showing that 58% of people aged 18 to 22 surveyed had participated in at least one form of sports betting activity.
TMA’s proposal goes beyond raising the minimum participation age. The group wants prediction-market advertising restricted around schools and parks and reduced on social-media and gaming platforms that are particularly popular with adolescents.
It also wants operators barred from using celebrities, cartoons or characters associated with programmes and games aimed at children and teenagers. Advertising would additionally be required to make clear that participation is intended only for people aged 21 and over.
The association represents more than 60,000 physicians and medical students across Texas.
Texas Examines Prediction Markets as Legal Debate Grows
The recommendations arrive while the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs examines the rapid expansion of prediction markets and whether federally regulated event contracts are being used to bypass the state’s gambling restrictions.
Texas prohibits most forms of gambling and has not legalised online sports betting, but prediction-market companies can currently make event contracts available under the federal derivatives framework.
The distinction has become increasingly contentious nationwide. Prediction-market operator Kalshi has argued that its contracts fall under federal commodities law rather than state gambling legislation. However, an August federal appeals court ruling backed Nevada’s authority to regulate sports-related event contracts under its gambling laws, adding further pressure to the industry’s claim that federal oversight alone governs such products.
Prediction markets are meanwhile attracting users and businesses for purposes beyond conventional wagering. Some companies have started using event contracts as hedging tools against weather, regulatory and other commercial risks, illustrating how the products increasingly occupy both financial and betting-related territory.
For Texas physicians, however, the classification dispute does not remove the potential behavioral risks. Their position is that products offering rapid financial exposure to uncertain outcomes should carry stronger age and marketing safeguards regardless of whether they are formally defined as gambling.