Betting on an election one is voting in is illegal in Wisconsin.
Politics betting has become popular on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. Just this year, people have placed lucrative bets on the capture of the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and on the war with Iran, among other events.
On Kalshi, people have placed bets worth tens of thousands of dollars on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election on April 7 and the governor’s primary election on Aug. 11.
Ann Jacobs, Wisconsin’s Elections Commission chair, noted on X that voters’ ballots can be disqualified and thrown out if they were found to have bet on the election.
Wisconsin Statute 6.03(2) specifies that no one is allowed to vote in any election in which the person has placed “any bet or wager depending upon the result of the election.” The idea behind the law has existed since 1849.
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Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs determines the results of the 2020 presidential election and recounts. (Screenshot | WisEye)
Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs is warning voters that it’s against state law to wager on an election if you are casting a ballot in that race.
Jacobs’ comments, made last week on X, come as prediction market sites such as Kalshi and Polymarket have continued to grow in popularity.
“I know it’s all the rage to bet on everything, but you cannot bet on an election in Wisconsin,” Jacobs wrote. “If you do, your ballot can be challenged & thrown out … So go vote and save your $ for playing Euchre with your uncle!”
Wisconsin’s election laws include a provision that states nobody “shall be allowed to vote in any election in which the person has made or become interested, directly or indirectly, in any bet or wager depending upon the result of the election.”
Currently on Kalshi, tens of thousands of dollars in bets have been placed on the result, turnout and margin of victory of next week’s state Supreme Court election. Even more money has been wagered on the state’s upcoming race for governor — including $85,000 on the Democratic primary race.
The ethics of participating in prediction markets have come under scrutiny as their popularity has grown, particularly the opportunity for placing bets that are akin to insider trading. More than $500 million in bets were placed on the prospect of the U.S. going to war with Iran shortly before major announcements about U.S. military actions in the country, NBC News reported.
The law against betting on elections has been on the books in some form since 1849. Other states, including Arizona and Texas, also have laws against wagering on elections.
Jacobs told Wisconsin Public Radio that the state isn’t going to go looking for offenders of the election betting law, however if someone brags online about a big win, that could open them up to scrutiny and the potential cancellation of their vote.
“No, the state is not going out and issuing search warrants to betting platforms to cross reference against voters,” Jacobs told WPR. “I think the most likely way this would come up would be exactly how you think, which is somebody posted on social media saying, ‘Hey, I made this big bet,’ and then someone who doesn’t like them reports it to the authorities.”
Jacobs told the Wisconsin Examiner a voter’s ballot could be voided because of betting through the state’s existing ballot challenge processes, which allow anyone to object to the counting of an absentee ballot. She compared it to challenges that are received for people who post selfies with their ballots.
“Who would do such a thing? people who hate you,” Jacobs said. “It’s almost always the opposing candidate. Is that a lot of work? Yes. Is it sort of silly? Yes. If you think you’re going to get a big amount of money, then don’t vote.”
The emergence of the prediction markets was also an impetus for the state Legislature quickly passing a bill to legalize online sports betting in Wisconsin. That bill is currently awaiting the signature of Gov. Tony Evers.
The UW-Madison football team plays at Camp Randall Stadium on Sept. 24, 2024. A bill enabling student athletes to make money from their name, image and likeness is advancing in the state Senate.(Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
In two narrow votes, the Wisconsin Senate on Tuesday passed bills to legalize online sports betting in the state and create a set of rules for managing name, image and likeness deals for University of Wisconsin athletes.
Both bills were passed and sent to the desk of Gov. Tony Evers despite opposition within both party caucuses.
Sports betting
After initially appearing to be on the legislative fast track upon its introduction last fall, the sports betting bill faced strenuous opposition and only passed on the last day of normal floor of activity in both the Assembly and Senate.
The bill passed the Senate 21-12 but divided both Democrats and Republicans. Only nine Senate Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Three Democrats joined nine Republicans in voting against the bill. The Republicans who opposed the bill said they were concerned about the consequences of the availability of frictionless sports betting in people’s pockets.
Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) said that the bill would be responsible for “family disintegration” across the state. Nass, who is not running for re-election, said in a statement that the passage of the sports betting bill was one of the reasons why he believes Republicans will not have a Senate majority in the next session.
“Lost productivity, addiction treatment, bankruptcy, increased demand for social services, criminal justice costs and diminishing household savings far exceed any revenue benefit in the state,” Nass said.
Under the Wisconsin Constitution, gambling is only allowed on the property of the state’s Native American tribes. It’s been legal to place bets on sports in person at tribal casinos in Wisconsin since 2021.
The sports betting bill models Wisconsin’s program after Florida’s online sports betting law, which allows online gambling if the servers hosting the bets are located on tribal land.
The state’s tribes have been supportive of the bill, arguing that it allows them to keep pace with the expansion of sports betting in neighboring Illinois and the emergence of quasi-sports betting prediction sites such as Kalshi and Polymarket.
Several Democrats said Tuesday they were supporting the bill because it would help the tribes.
“I really think that this moment is about a collective assertion of tribal sovereignty and the preservation of exclusivity that the tribes have fought for decades to protect,” Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said.
Name, Image and Likeness
Just days before the start of the 2025 NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, the Senate passed a bill that would establish rules for managing name, image and likeness deals for collegiate athletes.
The bill passed with no debate in a 17-16 vote with six Democrats joining 11 Republicans to vote in favor of the bill.
College athletes have been eligible for NIL payments since a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision. NIL has upended college sports, with major programs such as UW-Madison’s football team being pushed to line up large amounts of money to attract recruits.
UW-Madison Athletic Director Chris McIntosh said at a public hearing on the bill last week that its passage is necessary to retain the school’s athletics competitiveness.
The bill would provide $14.6 million annually in state funds to go towards debt service for the maintenance costs of UW-Madison’s athletic facilities. It also includes $200,000 annually in state funds for debt service for maintenance costs of the UW–Milwaukee Klotsche Center as well as $200,000 for the UW-Green Bay soccer complex. The purpose is to free up funds that the UW can use to provide students with opportunities for NIL agreements.
The bill also prohibits NIL contracts that conflict with school policies or provide money in exchange for athletic performance, as well as those that require student athletes to endorse alcoholic beverages, gambling, banned athletic substances or illegal activities or substances. It also includes a requirement that student athletes disclose third-party NIL deals they enter.
UW schools will also be able to contract with organizations that can help student athletes find NIL opportunities.
A controversial provision of the bill creates a sweeping exemption for UW NIL agreements from the state’s open records law. The provision has raised concerns among open government advocates in the state.
In this online ad, prediction market platform Kalshi advertises its sports betting products in California and Texas, both states that have not legalized sports gambling. States are increasingly targeting platforms like Kalshi, arguing they circumvent the protections and taxes of regulated gambling markets. (Image courtesy of Dustin Goucher/ Event Horizon newsletter)
Online prediction markets allow users to put money on the outcome of almost anything — this weekend’s NBA game between the Warriors and the Thunder, the next supreme leader of Iran, whether the government will confirm the existence of aliens.
But those markets have no state oversight and operate even in states that ban gambling.
The platforms are raising bipartisan alarms, especially related to sports gambling. As states have legalized sports betting in recent years, they’ve required legal sportsbooks to jump through multiple hoops — from age verification procedures to protections for gambling addiction to tax collections. Online prediction markets circumvent all those rules.
Platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket say they are offering contracts similar to commodity markets that speculate on the future price of corn or oil — not outright gambling. But a growing number of states are rejecting those justifications, arguing the platforms are offering a backdoor to skirt state gambling regulations, particularly on sports.
The issue has sparked action from state regulators, new legislation, and lawsuits from both states and prediction markets. Complicating matters are the federal government’s moves to block state regulation of prediction markets, which see more than $13 billion in transactions each month.
Most activity on those platforms revolves around sports. And in national ads, Kalshi even marketed itself as the first national legal sports betting platform — even though states approve and regulate sports gambling since a 2018 Supreme Court decision. In 11 states, sports gambling remains illegal.
“This is sports wagering. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably sports wagering, in this situation,” said Kentucky state Rep. Michael Meredith, a Republican.
Meredith, who sponsored a 2023 law that legalized sports betting in Kentucky, called for states to regulate prediction markets during a webinar hosted by the National Conference of State Legislatures. That organization, representing state legislators across the country, has urged Congress “to act swiftly to address the rapid growth of unregulated sports‑related event contracts.”
State leaders argue their longstanding authority to oversee gambling should allow states to regulate or ban prediction market platforms. But those companies maintain they are not beholden to state regulations.
“I think it’s very clear that this authority should be vested in our state governments,” Meredith said last month.
In New York, lawmakers are considering legislation that would ban prediction markets from offering contracts on sports events, in addition to natural disasters, acts of terrorism and deaths. In Nevada, where gambling and tourism are top economic drivers, regulators are involved in a protracted legal fight after the state sought to stop prediction market activity on sports.
“To me, this is clearly gambling,” Thomas Reeg, CEO of Caesars Entertainment, which operates casinos and sports betting, said during a company earnings call in January.
But states are also fighting an obscure federal agency seeking to protect the emerging marketplace. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates derivatives such as futures contracts on stocks, has asserted it has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets and promised to fight state regulatory efforts in court.
The CTFC did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment. Neither did Kalshi or Polymarket, two of the leading prediction market companies.
A new wave of betting
Unless Congress passes legislation, experts say the courts will ultimately decide what role states can play in regulating prediction markets.
The standoff has led to litigation between the platforms and states in at least eight states, and officials in 11 states have sent cease and desist orders to prediction market companies, according to the American Gaming Association, an industry group representing casinos and sports books. A bipartisan group of attorneys general from 39 states and the District of Columbia recently urged a federal court to uphold state authority to regulate sports gambling.
If you already have what I would call an epidemic of sports betting addiction in this country when you have regulated sports betting, imagine what it's going to be like when you have essentially unregulated sports betting.
– Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy at Better Markets
The American Gaming Association says prediction markets should either get out of the sports betting business or follow the same regulations and rules that apply to sportsbooks such as DraftKings and FanDuel.
“They don’t want to pay the taxes, they don’t want to undergo the compliance and provide all of the consumer protections that are required by states of operators who operate legal sports betting,” said Tres York, the vice president of government relations for the association.
The organization estimates states have lost out on more than $570 million in sports gambling tax revenues since prediction markets began offering sports events contracts.
Many state leaders and experts are already concerned about the societal effects from the meteoric rise of sports gambling, which has transformed collegiate and professional sports, and the potential for manipulation by players.
“If you already have what I would call an epidemic of sports betting addiction in this country when you have regulated sports betting, imagine what it’s going to be like when you have essentially unregulated sports betting,” said Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy at Better Markets, a nonprofit watchdog group advocating for consumer and investor financial protections.
The wide range of available bets also is raising alarms over election integrity and insider trading. In addition to individual elections, prediction markets have allowed wagers on the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the timing of the U.S. strike on Iran. Last week, hundreds of thousands of dollars were bet the day before the Iranian strikes, and more than 100 accounts cashed in $10,000 or more from successful predictions, according to a New York Times analysis.
“It’s a huge change to all of a sudden allow betting on elections, and it really threatens the underpinnings of our democracy,” Schiffrin said. “It just seems like there’s tremendous potential for wrongdoing.”
On its website, Kalshi says it operates under a “strict regulatory framework” with a suite of market integrity, surveillance, financial safeguards, and anti-manipulation protections.
Federal-state conflict
Citing what it called “an onslaught” of state litigation, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission last month filed a court brief underscoring its authority to regulate prediction markets.
“To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear: We will see you in court,” Commissioner Mike Selig said in a video posted on social media. Selig is the only member of the presidentially appointed commission, which currently has four vacancies.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, immediately vowed to oppose the federal agency and the prediction platforms in court. Gambling has been banned under the Utah Constitution since the state’s founding, and Cox posted on social media that prediction markets are “destroying the lives of families.”
Kalshi swiftly sued the governor and the state in federal court in anticipation of enforcement efforts and pending legislation in Salt Lake City. The company’s lawsuit cited the governor’s post and a column penned by Republican Attorney General Derek Brown explaining why he joined Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, “in urging Congress to address offshore gambling operations that disregard state law and target young Americans.”
Utah Republican state Rep. Joseph Elison sponsored the legislation cited in Kalshi’s lawsuit. The bill, which has passed both chambers, would expand the state’s definition of gambling to include proposition betting — bets on the performance of an individual player or team that don’t necessarily affect the outcome of a competition. While Elison acknowledged the courts will ultimately determine the issue, he said prediction markets are essentially offering proposition betting without authorization.
”We’re 50 independent sovereigns that gave centralized government to the federal government to do certain things,” he told Stateline. “But the rest, we want those things to be under our purview. And this is one of those.”
The legal landscape
In early rulings on the matter, courts have issued a mix of opinions: States have found initial success in state courts while results have been more mixed in federal courts, said Daniel Wallach, a gaming and sports gambling attorney tracking the issue.
But federal law has long affirmed state authority to oversee gambling, he said.
Despite attempts to cast transactions as investments, Wallach says courts will look at the substance of bets, which he said are almost indistinguishable from those made in state-regulated betting markets.
“The argument that this is investing rather than gambling is essentially elevating form over substance,” he said. “Plain and simple, this is wagering on the outcome of a sporting event.”
Wallach said state efforts such as cease and desist orders are counterproductive, as they essentially invite federal lawsuits from prediction market firms. He said states are better off pursuing gambling enforcement efforts in state courts, where several have won preliminary injunctions halting operations of the platforms temporarily.
For now, he said the federal agency has applied almost no scrutiny of the platforms, noting that the president’s family has a financial interest in the industry.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, has a business interest in two of the largest online prediction markets, and the president’s social media platform Truth Social announced it would start its own prediction market, according to The New York Times.
Journalist Dustin Gouker, who authors newsletters on gambling and prediction markets, noted that the CFTC rules that currently regulate prediction markets were built for financial products — not gambling. He said prediction markets have moved into the gaming market because “nobody said no.”
“It’s a bit of a mess,” he said. “If we’re going to have betting in 50 states for everyone 18 and over, shouldn’t we have thought about that a little bit more?”
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
The Wisconsin Legislature is considering a bill to legalize online sports gambling. (Getty Images)
The Wisconsin Assembly on Thursday passed bills to legalize online sports betting and add state regulations for University of Wisconsin athletes receiving money for their name, image and likeness rights.
Both bills passed with no or little debate and the NIL bill passed with just a single no vote. They will now be sent to the state Senate.
Last fall, Republican lawmakers introduced the online sports betting bill with a lot of momentum. A public hearing on the measure just days after the bill’s introduction.
The Wisconsin constitution requires that any legal gambling be managed by the state’s federally recognized Native American tribes. Under current law, people can place sports bets in person at tribal casinos but online sports bets — a market that has grown exponentially as legal sports gambling has spread across the country — remained prohibited. Under the bill, Wisconsin would follow a legal framework first established in Florida that would allow online sports betting if the infrastructure to manage the bets is housed on tribal land.
The sports betting bill was introduced and hearings were held in both chambers of the Legislature in rapid succession, but the bill did not come up for a floor vote until the last day of the Assembly’s schedule.
The Assembly passed the bill with bipartisan support despite objections from lobbying groups representing the country’s largest online sportsbooks. The state’s tribes have supported the legislation, arguing that the proliferation of live betting markets on websites such as Kalshi and the ease with which many Wisconsinites can cross the border to Illinois where online sports bets are legal, has damaged their business.
The NIL bill adds regulations for how University of Wisconsin schools manage payment to collegiate athletes. The NCAA officially allowed collegiate athletes to be paid for appearing in advertisements or commercial products such as video games in 2021.
Under the bill passed Thursday, student-athletes will be allowed to hire agents to represent them and individual universities can facilitate NIL agreements on behalf of their athletes. Students will not be allowed to endorse tobacco products, alcohol or illegal activities. Some records related to NIL agreements will be exempt from the state’s open records law “when competitive reasons require confidentiality.”
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