Senate Hearing “No Sure Bets” on May 20 — What Sports Bettors Need to Know

The United States Senate is about to put sports betting — and the fast-growing world of prediction markets — under a formal microscope. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who chairs the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Technology, and Data Privacy, has announced a hearing scheduled for May 20, 2026, titled “No Sure Bets: Protecting Sports Integrity in America.” For anyone who bets on sports legally in the United States, this hearing is worth paying attention to.

What Is This Hearing Actually About?

The hearing was called in response to a wave of match-fixing and insider-betting scandals that have surfaced across multiple professional and college sports leagues. The Senate Commerce Committee announcement specifically cited incidents involving the NBA, MLB, UFC, MLS, and the NCAA. Earlier this year, 20 individuals were indicted in a wide-ranging point-shaving scheme that allegedly bribed 39 NCAA athletes across more than 17 Division I teams, resulting in more than 29 fixed games. It is that kind of case, alongside growing concerns about young people accessing betting platforms, that pushed Congress into action.

The subcommittee will examine whether the current regulatory framework is strong enough to prevent outcomes from being manipulated, or whether additional federal oversight is needed on top of the state-by-state system that has governed sports betting since the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018. Since that ruling, legal wagering has expanded to 39 states and Washington D.C., forming a market valued at approximately $165 billion.

Who Is Testifying

The witness list tells you a great deal about what Congress is and is not trying to do here. Four witnesses are scheduled to appear. Bill Miller, the President and CEO of the American Gaming Association, will represent the licensed sportsbook industry. Mary Beth Thomas, Executive Director of the Tennessee Sports Wagering Council, brings a state-level regulatory perspective. Scott Sadin, co-founder and CEO of Integrity Compliance 360, will speak to the mechanics of fraud detection and integrity monitoring. And the Honorable Patrick McHenry, a former Congressman now serving as a Senior Advisor to the Coalition for Prediction Markets, will represent the emerging prediction market sector.

That last inclusion is significant. This marks the first time a Senate body has formally brought prediction markets into a hearing on sports. Platforms like Kalshi have built a growing presence in the sports-adjacent event contract space, and their inclusion alongside traditional sportsbook representatives signals that Congress is treating them as a legitimate part of the landscape rather than an unregulated fringe.

What Is at Stake for Bettors

For bettors, the most direct concern is whether this hearing leads to federal legislation that changes how, where, or what you can wager on. Right now, sports betting is regulated state by state. A federal framework — even a limited one — could impose new data-sharing requirements on sportsbooks, tighten age verification standards, or establish rules about certain types of bets that are particularly susceptible to manipulation.

Senator Blackburn framed the session around protecting the integrity of competition and addressing “the growing exposure of young people and children to betting platforms.” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz added that fans should not have to wonder whether a missed shot or a dropped pass was intentional. Those concerns, while legitimate, also create the conditions for regulatory proposals that could affect everyday bettors even if they have never placed a questionable wager in their lives.

The most realistic outcome of a productive hearing, based on the current political environment, would be a push for clearer data-sharing standards between sportsbooks and sports leagues, stronger federal age verification requirements, and a more defined federal classification for prediction markets. Outright federal prohibition of any bet type or platform seems unlikely given the composition of the witness panel, which was clearly assembled to have a substantive conversation rather than to shut the industry down.

The Prediction Markets Dimension

Perhaps the most interesting subplot heading into May 20 involves where prediction markets fit in the regulatory picture. Critics have argued that allowing participants to trade contracts on individual game outcomes creates new pathways for insiders to profit on information they should not be using. Supporters of platforms like Kalshi counter that their exchange-based pricing model is actually more resistant to manipulation than traditional sportsbooks, because moving a prediction market price requires shifting an entire market rather than influencing a single line.

Congress recently voted to prohibit members of Congress and their staff from participating in prediction markets, and separate legislation has been proposed to restrict government officials from using insider information to trade on such platforms. Those actions suggest that lawmakers take prediction markets seriously as a financial product — which is exactly the argument their advocates want them to make heading into the hearing.

What Happens Next

A Congressional hearing is not legislation. Nothing enforceable comes out of May 20 on its own. But hearings establish the factual record that future bills are built on, and the inclusion of both the AGA and the prediction markets coalition in the same witness panel means the conversation will be informed by multiple sides of the industry. Bettors who want to stay ahead of any regulatory shifts should watch how the testimony shapes media coverage and whether the subcommittee signals any specific legislative priorities in the days that follow. The hearing starts at 10 a.m. Eastern and will stream live on the Commerce Committee website and YouTube.