When the Supreme Court Said Sports Betting Could Be Legalized, It Left the Issue to the States, Not the CFTC

Eight years after PASPA fell, the regulatory picture is exactly the patchwork the Better Markets piece describes: 30+ states with online sportsbooks, dramatically different rules in each, no federal floor on consumer protections, and now a new front opening at the federal level where the CFTC is being asked to regulate prediction markets as financial instruments instead of as gambling.

The piece argues persuasively that Murphy v. NCAA (the 2018 decision) didn't authorize a federal regulator to step in and override state gambling laws — it returned that authority to the states. For us, the practical question is simpler: under any framework, who is making sure operators are funding treatment, enforcing self-exclusion across state lines, and not marketing to known problem gamblers? Right now the answer is “nobody, consistently.”