- The Nevada Council on Problem Gambling will formally end its affiliation with the national council this month.
- Kalshi accepts traders at 18, while NCPG’s own standards strongly recommend a minimum gambling age of 21.
- NCPG took a $2 million, two-year investment from Kalshi in May as its first financial services member.
- The Michigan Gaming Control Board quit NCPG on July 1 over the same Kalshi membership.
LAS VEGAS – The Nevada Council on Problem Gambling will formally end its affiliation with the National Council on Problem Gambling this month over NCPG’s $2 million membership deal with the prediction market Kalshi. It is the second organization to break with the national group over that deal in six weeks.
Nevada Asked To Pause Its Membership, Then Withdrew
The council asked in June to pause its membership rather than end it. The national council declined, and Nevada moved to sever, Executive Director Trey Delap told the Nevada Current.
“Affiliation means something,” Delap said. “We cannot lend Nevada’s name and credibility to an organization when we no longer believe we’re aligned on a fundamental consumer-protection issue.”
Delap said the split “reflects a fundamental difference in how we believe a problem gambling organization should respond to emerging gambling risks,” and that the decision “is based on the elevated risk of harm to young people.”
Kalshi’s 18 Against NCPG’s Recommended 21
NCPG’s own Internet Responsible Gambling Standards, revised in April, state that “a minimum age of 21 is strongly recommended to access any play, whether free or paid.” Kalshi sets its minimum at 18.
The same document says the standards reach any internet activity that meets its behavioral definition of gambling, “including emerging products such as futures contracts and prediction markets, regardless of current regulatory treatment or designation.”
Nevada sets 21 as the floor for licensed gambling. An 18-year-old turned away from the state’s licensed USA sportsbooks clears Kalshi’s stated age minimum, a three-year gap that anchors an argument otherwise fought in jurisdictional terms.
Kalshi’s Safeguards Are Company-Set, Not Regulator-Enforced
A state-licensed sportsbook works under an age floor written into state law. Its customers can enroll in a self-exclusion program the regulator administers, which bars them from every licensed operator in that state, and the regulator audits compliance, levies fines and can move against a license. Advertising limits, deposit and credit restrictions and record-keeping sit in the same rulebook, and a book that ignores them answers to the commission that issued its license.
Kalshi is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a designated contract market rather than licensed by any state gaming regulator. It offers voluntary self-exclusion for a fixed term, personal funding caps on deposits and access to a cross-platform exclusion service.
Those are company commitments. No state regulator writes them, audits them or penalizes their failure, and that is the gap the Nevada council named. An exchange account and an account at one of the licensed USA gambling sites sit under two different enforcement regimes, not two versions of the same one.
Michigan Withdrew July 1, Washington Cited Sovereignty
Michigan’s gaming board went first, quitting NCPG on July 1. Executive Director Henry Williams wrote in the withdrawal letter that Kalshi had been offering unlicensed sports gambling in the state until a temporary restraining order stopped it on June 29, and that aligning with a company numerous states are suing undercuts their enforcement work.
Williams also objected that the membership blurs a line. Listing Kalshi among NCPG’s members implies it carries the licensing obligations, consumer safeguards and oversight that bind legal sportsbooks, he wrote, and it carries none of them. Board staff gave up their NCPG board and committee seats, stopped attending its events, and Michigan pulled its paid sponsorship of the July conference.
The Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling in Washington has said it is troubled by the national council partnering with a company that disregards tribal sovereignty.
NCPG Created A New Member Category For Kalshi In May
NCPG announced the membership on May 18, creating a Financial Services and Trading subcategory and placing Kalshi in it at the platinum level under a two-year, $2 million commitment. Executive Director Heather Maurer said at the time that innovation and responsibility have to advance together, and that Kalshi’s engagement showed a commitment to heading off harm early. The national council describes itself as neutral on legalized gambling and has said corporate contributions are not policy endorsements.
Prediction markets now out-trade America’s sportsbooks, which puts the question of whose rulebook applies in front of millions of accounts reaching the same games licensed operators take bets on.
Nevada’s Injunction And The Aug. 12 Geofence Deadline
Nevada’s First Judicial District Court entered a preliminary injunction on May 18 barring Kalshi from offering sports, election and entertainment contracts in the state.
A stipulation the court signed July 24 gave the exchange until Aug. 12 to finish a multi-source geofence blocking Nevada users. It also lets Kalshi answer a missed deadline with a sworn affidavit explaining the delay, rather than the $120,000 a day the Nevada Gaming Control Board publicized.
The Nevada council has filed amicus briefs backing the state’s position, and says it will complete its withdrawal from NCPG this month.
Tags: Kalshi, National Council on Problem Gambling, Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, Trey Delap, Henry Williams, Michigan Gaming Control Board, Nevada, prediction markets