- A bill that would ban prediction markets advanced to the Minnesota senate floor.
- Senator John Marty’s SF 4511 is one of the strictest bills against prediction markets yet.
- Bill progress has ramped up since a Minnesota politician used a prediction market platform to bet on his own political race.
MINNEAPOLIS – Lawmakers in Minnesota are inching closer to banning prediction markets in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. A bill targeting a wide range of offerings from prediction market apps has advanced to the senate floor.
Senator John Marty’s bill, SF 4511, would prohibit contracts including sports, elections, and more real-world outcomes. Lawmakers claim offerings from Kalshi and other prediction markets too closely resemble sports betting markets.
Minnesota Lawmaker Uses Predictions To Bet On Own Race
Efforts to pass SF 4511 haveramped up over the last week after Senator Matt Klein placed a wager on his own political race. Ironically, Klein is one of the co-authors on the bill that would ban prediction markets in Minnesota.
Klein was one of three political candidates that Kalshi identified forpurchasing contracts for their own campaigns, which would be prohibited under the new bill that he’s a co-author for. Klein bet $50 on his primary race after hearing from a friend that there’s a market for it. Kalshi fined him $540 and issued a five-year ban from using the prediction market platform.
Scrutiny under insider trading with prediction platforms have only intensified after the incident with Senator Klein. The bill received a unanimous vote in the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee and would become the harshest crackdown against prediction markets in the U.S. if it is approved by the Senate.
Another interesting layer is that Matt Klein was responsible for introducing the main sports betting bill in Minnesota last year. Klein’s SF 757 aimed to create a legal Minnesota sports betting alongside state horse racing tracks.
