The Week That Was: Is Kalshi Joining The NCPG Good, Bad, Or Something In Between?
There are many responsible gambling concerns around prediction markets, but will Kalshi's membership in the NCPG make them go away?
The Bulletin Board
THE LEDE: Is Kalshi’s new NCPG membership an RG shield?
READS of the WEEK: A look at the articles Straight to the Point is reading.
QUICK HITTER: CA Judge grants cardrooms a preliminary injunction.
ICYMI: An End of the Week News Roundup.
NEWSLETTER ROUNDUP: The best of the best in gambling newsletters.
The Lede: NCPG Membership Isn’t a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
I’ve written a lot about my gripes with the responsible gambling and problem gambling community, but two things that have popped up on my radar recently really crystallize the issues within the RG/PG space as I see them:
A series of fines in March handed out to the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health (MCGH) by the Attorney General’s office — the offenses range from failure to pay overtime to failure to keep true and accurate payroll records. The MCGH receives state funding and won the contract to take over the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s responsible gaming and player health program from GameSense. I’ve heard there is a second round of fines (yet to be posted) and the overall total could be around $75,000. This is not the behavior I expect from a harm reduction organization.
The National Council on Problem Gambling creating a new category for Kalshi, which is committing to giving the organization $2 million over two years.
The issues I’ve highlighted in the past are:
Gatekeeping, with a small contingent of people, who have produced next to zero real-world results, in the space dictating what is the “correct” way forward.
The write a check and get credit for doing something, when you’re really doing nothing crowd.
Still, the overarching issue is that the prevailing mentality is that more money will solve the problem, when in fact, the more money that enters the space the more issues it creates.
As I wrote in June 2024, when you only have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail:
“Look at any RG campaign of the past few years and the only noticeable difference from older campaigns is that they cost more money. But we’re supposed to believe they will deliver different results.
And, as I wrote in September 2023, the RG community suddenly has some power and clout, and the solution to everything seems to be more money and more power and clout:
“After years of being treated like Monsieur Coquenard’s clerks, they are now a Porthos-like guest of honor. And like the gluttonous musketeer, they are never satisfied and constantly ask for more.
“Every study concludes with a note that more studies are required. Every bit of funding is called a first step. Every new policy (no matter how ridiculous) is lauded. Every talking point delivered is instantly adopted and shared far and wide. Every transgression is a sign of an underlying and more pervasive problem. Every (overly expensive) training requires, you guessed it, another training.
“And honestly, what have we learned? What measurable progress has been made in reducing harm? Is anyone even measuring?”
How bad has it gotten?
Let’s look at the NCPG’s last 12 months for a moment — The NCPG used to be the gold standard on this front, until longtime executive director Keith Whyte parted ways with the organization in January 2025:
A public spat over a 1-800 number that did not paint the NCPG in a positive light.
A subsequent and utterly ridiculous resolution calling on prediction markets to adopt their helpline number.
The onboarding of Kalshi, which looks a lot like a situation where money will make a potential problem go away.
Like the MCGH, the NCPG believes they have all the answers, but the only answer seems to be along the lines of George Carlin’s bit on God, “He needs money!” The NCPG is getting around $3 million from the NFL and Kalshi alone, far more funding than it has ever had in the past, and yet the organization is practically irrelevant at this point; membership is a box-ticking exercise for operators, much like joining your local small business association, you get to put a membership sticker on your window, or in the case of sportsbooks, on your website and in materials you give to state regulators.
As Robert Walker put it on LinkedIn, there is a strong odor of something along the lines of pay-for-play going on:
“The NCPG had to create a new membership category to take the money. The press release scrubbed the word "sports" from 600 words of text. Everyone involved knows what's happening here.
”What's happening is regulatory arbitrage. Kalshi is offering sports betting in states where sports betting is illegal, calling it something else, and now buying goodwill from the harm-reduction community so they have a talking point when the next attorney general files suit.
”I don't believe these markets are legal. I don't believe the CFTC has the authority it's claiming. And I don't believe a single executive at Kalshi privately believes what they're publicly arguing — because if they did, they'd have partnered with FINRA, not NCPG.”
Reads of the Week: Suggested Reading from STTP
Opinion: It’s the Dopamine, Not the Dollars [Alex Weldon, Gaming America]
What Sports Gambling Is Learning From Big Tobacco [Danny Funt, The New Republic]
NYC Casinos’ Bumpy Start: Underperformance At Resorts World, Delays At Metropolitan Park [Eric Raskin, Casino Reports]
Rush Street Focuses on Online Casino Expansion, Not Prediction Market Competition [Brad Senkiw, Covers]
Who Prediction Market Traders Really Are: More DeFi Enthusiast, Less Sports Bettor [Brant James, Gambling Insider]
Sports Illustrated Defends Its Standards After Plagiarism Incident [Ryan Glasspiegel, Front Office Sports]
Light & Wonder CEO talks iGaming and prediction markets at Las Vegas gaming conference [Buck Wargo, CDC Gaming Reports]
Boomer’s CEO criticizes prediction markets for targeting teens and offering gambling on everything [Buck Wargo, CDC Gaming Reports]
We Legalized Sports Betting. Now We’re Paying For It [Scott Galloway & Jonathan D. Cohen, Podcast]
Quick Hitter: Judge Sides with CA Cardrooms
California cardrooms scored a legal victory yesterday,
“San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Darwin issued a preliminary injunction on Thursday that stops Attorney General Rob Bonta’s cardroom regulations from taking effect while a legal challenge brought by the California Gaming Association moves forward.
“The court ruled that Bonta’s Bureau of Gambling Control exceeded its authority by adopting regulations that effectively act as a statewide ban on some of the cardrooms’ most popular table games.”
The California Gaming Association applauded the ruling, with CGA President Kyle Kirkland saying:
“Today’s ruling validates what we have said all along: Attorney General Bonta and the Bureau of Gambling Control exceeded their authority by attempting to rewrite California gaming law. These regulations were driven by pressure from powerful tribal gaming interests that have long sought to eliminate lawful competition from California’s cardrooms.”
Previous STTP coverage of the cardroom-tribal casino fight in California:
And a terrific article from Capitol Weekly explaining how player-banked games to be in the first place:
