Texas Tribune reported<\/a> that federal loopholes may have opened the door for sports betting alternatives, like prediction markets. These allow users to bet on sports, politics and current events through yes or no contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\nAyden Runnels with the Texas Tribune says that\u2019s part of why it\u2019s gaining popularity. They say prediction market apps are using a lot of marketing to reach those in states with bans.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne in particular, Kalshi, has advertised itself specifically in Texas as a legal way of betting within the state,\u201d said Runnels. \u201cI think that\u2019s really enticing for Texans who may see that and have reservations about using other sorts of apps or websites.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both types say they\u2019re protected by federal law. DFS argues it falls under a 2006 federal statute, and prediction markets say they are under commodity trading regulations.<\/p>\n
Mark Pannes is a teaching fellow and sports business lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, and in recent years, he has seen online sports betting gain a lot of traction in the Lone Star State, especially with how accessible it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cGambling is something that really happens on a mobile basis,\u201d Pannes says. \u201cPeople tend to be using their phone to gamble while they\u2019re either watching it live or they\u2019re watching it on a big screen, like a TV. So because it\u2019s become so easy to do and so seamless, there is a big there is a big increase in the volume of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Previous efforts to legalize gambling in the state have failed. There were several bills filed last session to address sports betting, but none passed before the session ended. Experts like Pannes say that regulating these platforms through legislation could be easier than legalizing gambling altogether, because that would require a constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 As football season kicks off, more fans are joining in on digital sports wagering in Texas,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[101216,101215,11638,41445,6778,4,450,54478,1062,451,3,111,6999,1022,101217,452,453,13309],"class_list":["post-168244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-abigail-vaerewyck","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-sports","tag-austin","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}