A New Jersey congressman wants to put a camera between kids and the betting apps that have quietly become part of their daily scroll.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer introduced legislation Wednesday that would force online sportsbooks and prediction market platforms to verify a user’s age with facial recognition technology before letting them log in or place a wager. The bill, called the Facial Recognition to Protect Children Act, would require these platforms to scan facial structure and patterns to estimate whether someone is old enough to legally bet. Gottheimer’s office says the system would not store a user’s identity or any biometric data, just an age estimate.
Gottheimer rolled out the bill alongside Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi, one of the fastest growing prediction market companies in the country. The pairing was notable. Rather than fighting new regulation, Kalshi showed up to help sell it.
“We’re asking our kids to self-police their way past a system built entirely on the honor code,” Gottheimer said. “A kid can log into a parent’s, an older sibling’s, or a friend’s account and place a bet with no verification at all. Nobody checks. That’s it. That’s the whole system.” He added that nobody would tolerate that kind of loophole walking into a casino, so there’s no reason to accept it on a phone.
The numbers behind the push are hard to ignore. Gottheimer’s office estimates Americans wagered roughly $160 billion on sports last year, generating about $16 billion in revenue for the industry, more than what Americans spend combined on movies, books, concerts, and pro sports tickets. Citing research from Common Sense Media, the congressman’s team says 36 percent of boys between 11 and 17 gambled in the past year, a number that climbs to 40 percent among boys 14 to 17. More than a quarter of those kids reported real fallout from it, including stress, family conflict, and trouble at school.
State regulators are already seeing the problem show up in their own numbers. Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation has fielded more than 80 reports of underage betting. Tennessee sportsbooks flagged more than 400 underage accounts in 2024 alone, up from around 100 the year before.
Gottheimer also pointed a finger at the gaming industry more broadly, arguing that loot boxes and other in-game purchases are training kids on the same reward loops that betting apps later cash in on.
The bill picked up cosponsors from both parties, including Reps. Jeff Van Drew, Nick LaLota, Kristen McDonald Rivet, Jimmy Panetta, Darren Soto, Tom Suozzi, Ritchie Torres, and Bruce Westerman. Van Drew, who joined Gottheimer at the announcement, said prediction markets are growing fast enough that Congress needs to get ahead of the risk to kids rather than react to it later.
For Kalshi, backing the bill lines up with safety features the company has already rolled out this year, including making facial ID the default login method for users who have it enabled on their phones, a tool that lets people check whether someone else is logging into their account, and selfie requests for accounts flagged as higher risk. Mansour framed the legislation as something the whole industry should be doing, not just his company.
“Beyond what’s required of us, we already self-regulate and have a suite of measures in place to keep minors off our platform,” Mansour said. “But this can’t just be one company’s responsibility, it has to be an industry standard.”
ParentsRISE, a group led by parents who lost children to harms tied to social media and betting products, also backed the bill, saying they’re relieved to see lawmakers paying attention to what they called the next wave of products built for compulsive use.
The bill builds on Gottheimer’s broader record on kids’ online safety. He has also worked with Rep. Elise Stefanik on the Parents Decide Act, which would require age verification when a phone or tablet is first set up, and has cosponsored several other kids’ privacy and safety bills including the Kids Online Safety Act.
Whether the bill gains real traction remains to be seen, but its arrival says something about where the betting industry is heading. Prediction markets like Kalshi have grown fast enough, and drawn enough young users, that even the companies profiting from that growth are starting to get ahead of the regulation rather than wait for it to catch them.
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