Minnesota Senate votes to ban prediction market bets and sweepstakes
Table of contents
- The Minnesota Senate passed legislation on April 30 banning most wagers on prediction markets, including Kalshi and Polymarket, by a vote of 56-10.
- The bill targets contracts on sports, weather, war, death and pop culture events, citing insider trading risks and unregulated gambling concerns.
- The measure faces an uncertain path in the Minnesota House, where Republican leadership has raised concerns about conflicts with federal law.
The Minnesota Senate voted overwhelmingly on April 30 to ban most wagers on prediction market platforms, passing legislation 56-10 that would make contracts on topics including sports, weather, popular culture events, war and death explicitly illegal under state law.
The bill, SF 4511, applies to platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket. Its passage arrives amid growing national scrutiny of prediction markets and a widening legal battle between state regulators and the federal government over who has authority to govern the sector.
Bipartisan support
The bill was originally authored by Sen. Matt Klein, DFL-Mendota Heights, who is now listed as a co-author following a political controversy the previous week.
Klein admitted he had discovered Kalshi in October 2025, placed a $50 wager on his own primary race out of curiosity, and was contacted by the platform in March 2026 for violating its rules. He paid a fine and was banned from the site for five years.
Klein subsequently apologized on the Senate floor. He said his experience “points to the need for clearer rules and regulations on these types of markets” and supported the bill’s passage.
Lead sponsor Sen. John Marty, a Democrat representing Roseville, framed the vote as a signal that prediction market risks cross traditional political divides. Marty told WCCO:
“It shows that people of both parties, people who are pro-gambling and anti-gambling together, can recognize that the prediction markets are ripe for conflict of interest, things from insider trading for politicians, for others. It’s a huge thing ripe for scandal. And it’s gone out of control.”
During Senate debate, Sen. Rasmusson cited figures suggesting 69% of Polymarket users lost money, with 1% of users accounting for 75% of winnings since 2022.
Those figures fed into a broader discussion over sector scale and the distribution of returns on prediction market platforms.
House prospects unclear
Lawmakers in both chambers advanced bills on the same day targeting prediction market platforms. The House measure faces resistance from GOP leadership over jurisdictional concerns.
House Republican floor leader Rep. Harry Niska said he would prefer to let the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission handle the matter first, citing concern about conflicts with federal commodities law and the cost of potential litigation for the state.
Ohio’s regulator has already fined Kalshi $5m, and New York has filed illegal gambling lawsuits against Coinbase and Gemini over their prediction market businesses.
The CFTC has filed lawsuits against multiple states arguing it holds exclusive authority over event contracts under the Commodity Exchange Act, and that state efforts to regulate prediction markets amount to an unlawful intrusion on federal jurisdiction. A federal judge halted Arizona’s prosecution of Kalshi on those grounds.
In April, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a preliminary injunction barring New Jersey from enforcing its gambling laws against Kalshi’s sports-related event contracts, in a significant win for the platform.
Courts in other jurisdictions have reached differing conclusions on the same question. The Minnesota session is scheduled to end on May 18, and Marty has said he remains hopeful the House will take up the legislation before then.
Sweepstakes in the crosshairs
Minnesota’s Senate did not limit its gambling-adjacent ambitions to prediction markets on April 30.
Lawmakers advanced a bill to prohibit online sweepstakes casino-style games, platforms that allow players to participate using virtual currencies and which critics say have operated in a deliberate legal loophole to circumvent state gambling rules.
The measure had not yet received a full Senate floor vote at the time of publication.
The move reflects a growing wave of state-level action against the sector. Maine has banned sweepstakes casinos outright and prohibited credit card deposits on the platforms. Indiana has passed a ban with a July compliance deadline.
Legislators in Maryland and Tennessee have introduced their own targeted bills. Minnesota’s legislative movement signals the state intends to align with that consensus rather than leave the category unaddressed.
Both the prediction market bill and the sweepstakes measure must advance through the House before the May 18 session deadline.
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