The Nevada Council on Problem Gambling said it will formally sever ties this month with the National Council on Problem Gambling over the national group’s partnership with Kalshi, the prediction market platform. The Nevada group said the issue goes beyond one company and reflects a deeper disagreement over how a problem-gambling organisation should respond to new forms of betting-like risk.
According to Nevada Current, the council first asked in June to pause its membership, but the national organisation said that was not an option. After months of discussion, the Nevada council concluded that the two groups are no longer mission aligned.
Trey Delap, the council’s executive director, said the arrangement can create public confusion by looking like an endorsement of Kalshi rather than neutral harm reduction. He said the council could not lend Nevada’s name and credibility to an organisation it no longer saw as aligned on a consumer-protection issue.
In May, the National Council on Problem Gambling announced a $2 million, two-year investment from Kalshi to support a trader health and safety initiative, and created a new Financial Services and Trading membership category to accommodate it. Kalshi joined as the first member at the Platinum level, according to the reporting cited by gamblingharm.org.
Delap argued that the language Kalshi uses, referring to “positions” and “trades”, is no more than euphemism. In his view, the activity has the same effect as gambling, and that matters especially because young people are at elevated risk of harm.
The Michigan Gaming Control Board said last month that it was withdrawing from the national council after Kalshi’s partnership announcement, warning that the relationship could blur lines between regulated sports betting and prediction markets. The Michigan board said it wanted no association with groups linked to companies it considers to be engaged in illegal gambling activity.
Other organisations have raised similar concerns. The Evergreen Council in Washington wrote that it was troubled by the national council’s willingness to partner with or accept investment from an entity it viewed as disregarding tribal sovereignty. GamblingHarm.org, which described NCPG as the country’s largest problem-gambling advocacy group, said the Nevada exit is part of a wider fracture over Kalshi and prediction markets.
Nevada Current said the CFTC claims exclusive jurisdiction over platforms that accept bets from gamblers as young as 18, while the National Council supports a minimum age of 21. Delap said the public-health response should not depend on which federal agency is in charge, because someone suffering harm still needs the same prevention and treatment response.
