New Underage Sports Betting Bill Pushes Facial Recognition

Representative Josh Gottheimer introduced a new underage sports betting bill in Congress on July 15, 2026. The bipartisan measure carries the name Facial Recognition to Protect Children Act. It would require online sportsbooks and prediction markets to verify a user’s age with facial recognition before allowing any bets or trades. Gottheimer unveiled the proposal alongside Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and eight other members of Congress, so the announcement carried support from both parties from the start.

The bill responds to mounting evidence that minors are finding their way onto betting platforms more easily than lawmakers expected. Prediction markets and sportsbooks have grown quickly over the past two years. Regulation has struggled to keep pace. Gottheimer framed the bill as a way to close that gap before it widens further.

How the Underage Sports Betting Bill Would Work

Under the proposal, platforms would use technology that estimates a person’s age from facial structure and patterns. It would not check government identification directly. The system would also skip storing personal identities or biometric details, so it works more like a filter than a database.

Gottheimer explained that the current honor-code approach leaves the door open for kids to log into a parent’s or sibling’s account. From there, placing a real bet takes only a few taps. Closing that gap is the entire point of the legislation.

Supporters argue the approach protects privacy because no images or identity records get retained once the age check runs. That distinction matters for an industry already facing scrutiny over data handling. Lawmakers hope it eases concerns from platforms worried about compliance costs.

A Problem Backed by Hard Numbers

Research from Common Sense Media found that 36 percent of boys between 11 and 17 have gambled within the past year. That figure climbs to 40 percent among those aged 14 to 17. More than a quarter of these young bettors reported real consequences, including stress, family conflict, and slipping grades.

State-level numbers tell a similar story. Iowa authorities logged more than 80 reports of underage betting. Tennessee sportsbooks flagged over 400 underage accounts in 2024, a sharp jump from the year before. Those figures gave the bill’s sponsors concrete evidence to point to, rather than relying on anecdote alone.

Industry Voices Line Up Behind the Bill

Kalshi has already rolled out its own safeguards, including Face ID checks, two-factor authentication, and selfie verification for high-risk accounts. Mansour said protecting children should be an obvious priority. He argued the responsibility cannot rest with one company alone, so Kalshi is backing federal rules that would apply the same standard industry-wide.

The advocacy group ParentsRISE also backed the bill. The group, made up of survivor-parents pushing for stronger protections, pointed to newer betting products built to encourage compulsive use. Their support adds a consumer-safety voice to a bill otherwise driven by lawmakers and operators.

The Gap Between Sportsbooks and Prediction Markets

Traditional sportsbooks generally require bettors to be 21. Prediction markets, however, allow users as young as 18 to trade event contracts. That six-year difference has created a regulatory gap, and critics say it exposes younger users to gambling-like experiences with fewer guardrails in place.

New York has proposed requiring biometric checks at every login. But no state has built a system that matches what this federal bill envisions. Without a national standard, enforcement varies from one state to the next, and that patchwork only raises the stakes as prediction markets keep growing.

What Happens Next

Gottheimer positioned the bill as an extension of earlier online safety efforts. These include the Parents Decide Act, Sammy’s Law, and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act. Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet said minors should never be a few taps away from placing a bet. She called the bill a commonsense response to a problem that technology helped create.

Representative Ritchie Torres echoed that view, framing facial recognition as a way to protect children without compromising user privacy. The underage sports betting bill still needs to clear committee review and full votes in both chambers. Federal gambling oversight has traditionally been left to individual states, so swift passage is far from guaranteed.

Still, the proposal makes one thing clear. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are paying closer attention to how easily gambling apps reach kids. That attention alone may push platforms to tighten their own age checks, regardless of how the vote eventually turns out.