Missouri Attorney General: Prediction Markets Should Likely Pay Fair Share of Sports Betting Taxes

• Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway recently said her office is evaluating prediction markets
• If sports event contracts are equated to sports betting, Hanaway noted they should pay the same in taxes
• Missouri requires licensed sports betting operators to pay a 10% tax on adjusted gross revenue

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway revealed this week her office is evaluating prediction market companies that offer sports event contracts in Missouri, and that they likely should be paying their fair share of taxes in the Show-Me State.

Hanaway, speaking with Newstalk KZRG, said Missouri residents who use prediction market platforms and sports event contracts to place bets on their hometown Kansas City Chiefs are likely participating in sports betting, and these companies should be subjected to the same taxes as the state’s licensed sports betting operators.

“If these prediction markets allow sports betting on their platforms, then we think they should pay the same taxes as any of those other platforms and have the same regulatory structure,” Hanaway said to Newstalk KZRG.

Enforcing Missouri Law

Missouri launched its legal sports betting market in December 2025. Missouri currently has eight licensed online sports betting operators and eight retail sports betting operators. Licensed operators are taxed at a rate of 10% of adjusted gross revenue.

Hanaway told Newstalk KZRG that states have historically regulated sports betting and these laws should extend to sports event contracts. Prediction market operators offering sports event contracts, she noted, should be subject to similar regulations and taxes as licensed sports betting operators.

As for other controversial prediction market contracts, such as ones related to elections or entertainment? Hanaway said it’s her job to enforce the laws and the legislature’s job to determine what event contracts are allowed in the state.

Missouri currently has no pending litigation issues between its attorney general and prediction markets, one of the few with legalized sports betting to not do so. However, the issue could become a national one if the U.S. Supreme Court accepts a recent writ of certiorari submitted by New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport to determine if states can regulate sports event contracts through their own gambling laws.

SCOTUS Issue in 2027?

The filed writ of certiorari presents the following question to SCOTUS:

Whether the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act preempted States from regulating sports bets that occur within their jurisdictions if those bets are offered on markets registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The question has been the basis of just about every piece of litigation filed by state gaming regulators and prediction market operators since last year. A final SCOTUS hearing seemed likely after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision to affirm a dissolved Kalshi injunction against Nevada and allow regulatory board to impose its state gambling laws against sports event contracts.

In New Jersey’s petition, Davenport noted that SCOTUS in 2018 confirmed the rights of the states to decide on legalized sports betting for themselves, and whether or not to allow it in their borders.

“Different States have made different choices on that score. But Kalshi insists on a different approach—one where federalism has no place, and where the sports gambling laws must be the same in New Jersey as in Utah, so long as the company self-certifies its sports bets with the CFTC. As the Ninth Circuit has since observed, neither law nor logic supports the Third Circuit’s and Kalshi’s unprecedented rule. This Court should grant certiorari,” she wrote.

SCOTUS does not have to accept New Jersey’s petition on this issue. The last time it accepted a petition related to sports betting was in 2018, when SCOTUS eventually overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 and gave states the right to regulate sports betting.