Tribes Cheer Wisconsin Sports Betting Framework, While Ohio Lawmakers Propose 180 in This Week’s Bingos & Busts
Wisconsin's new sports betting law and Ohio's potential about-face both figure into our weekly round-up of winners and losers in the gambling industry.
Few things in the gambling industry, just like in life, are simple. A positive development for one person, place or thing likely means it wasn’t so great for another.
As we roll through this edition of Bingos & Busts – our Friday recap of who had good weeks and who saw less-than-favorable headlines – that adage is clear.
Bingo: Gov. Evers Signs Tribe-Friendly Wisconsin Sports Betting Bill
With 60% of the revenue earmarked for Wisconsin’s 11 tribes under legislation signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers , it’s not an ideal setup for the national sportsbooks. In fact, there’s no guarantee they want any part of it. All the tribes, though, eventually threw their support behind the hub-and-spoke model, under which betting apps must run through servers located on their land. In a statement to Gambling Insider’s Steve Bittenbender, Forest County Potawatomi Community Chairman Brooks Boyd praised the law: “This bipartisan legislation respects tribal sovereignty and keeps the economic benefits of mobile sports betting in Wisconsin.”
Bust: Ohio Lawmakers Propose Online Sports Betting Ban
While one state is adding sports betting, certain politicians in another want to take it away. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine last year expressed regret about legalization, and now three state lawmakers want to do a 180. Majority whip Riordan McClain (R-Upper Sandusky), Gary Click (R-Vickery) and Johnathan Newman (R-Troy) plan to introduce legislation that would strip online sports betting from the state, limiting the industry to four brick-and-mortar casinos. We get that drawbacks come with legal betting, and we support measures to curtail them (see Kentucky last week), but this is a bridge obviously too far. Without being gaslit into rehashing the reasons sports betting is legal in the first place, we hope this proposal gains no traction.
Bingo: Kalshi Scores Legal Victory in New Jersey
After multiple legal setbacks, Kalshi chalked up a ‘W’ in New Jersey, where the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to uphold a preliminary injunction that blocks the state from enforcing its cease-and-desist orders against the company. The ruling is widely considered Kalshi’s most significant court victory to date. Still, there’s a long way to go. States and prediction markets will continue to battle in the courtrooms, and the question of whether the exchanges can continue to offer sports event contracts seems destined for the Supreme Court.
Bust: FIFA’s Prediction Market Sponsorship Raises Eyebrows
Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa … ADI Predictstreet? FIFA announced the virtually unknown and barely existent prediction market as the newest sponsor of the 2026 World Cup. The platform is licensed in exactly one jurisdiction – Gibraltar, a country known for lax crypto regulation and whose Minister for Justice, Trade & Industry Nigel Feetham boasted ADI’s licence was pushed through in “record time”. The company is backed by Abu Dhabi’s royal family and led by Ajay Hans Raj Bhatia, who paid to settle insider trading accusations in India last year. World Cup sponsorships come with big price tags and FIFA is a commercial enterprise, but given the organization’s history of shady dealings, this one raises red flags.
Bingo: FanDuel Scraps Per-Wager Fee in Illinois
It’s a bit of a mystery as to why, but FanDuel, through the NBA Finals, is waiving the 50-cent surcharge it’s been tacking onto every bet placed in Illinois. The sportsbook added the fee added in response to a new state tax of 25 or 50 cents per bet, depending on how many wagers an operator writes. The sports betting industry’s disdain for that move was exacerbated when data suggested recreational bettors were making fewer bets at larger stakes. FanDuels’ decision to at least temporarily axe the per-wager fee is being interpreted by some industry observers as a sign that the bill to repeal the new tax has momentum.
Bust: AI Premier League Betting Goes Badly
AI researchers at General Reasoning put eight LLMs in a simulated market to bet the 2023-24 English Premier League season. It didn’t go well (h/t Brad Allen), as all eight lost money over the course of the season, and six lost their entire bankrolls (Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.4 “avoided ruin”). “[The] models struggle to behave coherently over long time horizons, often failing to act upon their analysis or failing to adapt as the world changes,” the study says. “The sophistication of their underlying strategies is also low when compared to human baselines, which suggests there is considerable room for future models to improve.” Our advice: Don’t ask ChatGPT to fill your bet slips.
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