An Ohio lawmaker has introduced a bill that would pull sports-related prediction markets into the state’s sports betting system if federal courts ultimately decide those products can keep operating. Senate Bill 430 was introduced on April 27 by Sen. Bill DeMora and would amend Ohio law to state that using a prediction market to trade event contracts on sporting events counts as sports gaming subject to state regulation.
The proposal is a fallback plan, not a surrender. DeMora said he still sees sports event contracts as wagers that should already be treated like sports betting, but he wants Ohio to have a tax and licensing structure ready if the U.S. Supreme Court or other federal courts end up siding with operators instead of the states trying to block them.
The bill treats sports event contracts like any other sportsbook product
The core of SB 430 is straightforward. It would place sports-related event contracts under the same part of Ohio law that governs licensed sports gaming rather than leaving them in a separate category. That would mean state oversight, tax treatment, and the rest of Ohio’s sports betting framework would apply if those products are allowed to stay in the market.
That approach reflects how Ohio has framed the issue from the start. State officials have argued that contracts tied to game outcomes, spreads, or similar sports events are not meaningfully different from sports wagers just because they are offered through a federally regulated event-contract exchange. The bill does not try to settle the federal question itself. It assumes Ohio may need a backup plan if it loses that legal fight.
Ohio’s courts and federal appeals courts are not seeing the issue the same way
The timing of the bill matters because the court picture is now split. On March 9, a federal judge in Ohio denied a request for a preliminary injunction against state enforcement, holding that the Commodity Exchange Act does not govern sports-event contracts and warning that treating them as swaps would produce absurd results by forcing all sports bets onto designated contract markets.
But on April 6, the Third Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in New Jersey, saying sports-related event contracts traded on a CFTC-licensed designated contract market are swaps and fall under the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction. That ruling gave operators a real federal appellate win and raised the odds of a wider showdown if other circuits keep moving in different directions.
Ohio is trying to prepare for either outcome
That is why SB 430 matters even though it is only newly introduced. Ohio is not waiting for every court to agree before thinking about what happens next. If the states lose, DeMora wants prediction markets offering sports contracts taxed and regulated like the sportsbooks already operating in Ohio. If the states win, the bill may become unnecessary. Either way, it shows that prediction markets are no longer being treated as a side issue in state gambling policy.
