John Arnold, laminitis and co-chair of Arnold Ventures, speaks during a league astatine CERAWeek by S&P Global astatine George R. Brown Convention Center successful Houston, March 20, 2024.
Yi-Chin Lee | Houston Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images
Billionaire philanthropist John Arnold says online sports betting has changed immeasurably since it became ineligible successful the U.S. successful 2018, acknowledgment to the emergence of online prediction marketplace platforms Kalshi and Polymarket and mobile apps similar DraftKings and FanDuel. To amended recognize the imaginable risks, he's awarding $2.6 cardinal to researchers studying the evolving satellite of gambling connected sports.
The grants, which person not been antecedently reported, volition spell to researchers astatine universities and deliberation tanks to look astatine the effect of gambling connected fiscal well-being, household formation, intelligence wellness and user behavior.
Arnold, who co-founded Arnold Ventures with his wife, Laura, told CNBC helium wants lawmakers and regulators to aftermath up to the caller world of the booming sports betting market.
"Being capable to stake implicit the telephone has dramatically accrued entree and lowered friction," Arnold told CNBC. "It has changed what the merchandise is. You tin stake connected each pitch. You tin stake with a velocity that was ne'er imaginable erstwhile you had to spot a telephone to enactment a stake down."
Arnold, a erstwhile hedge money proprietor and Enron vigor trader whose philanthropy has worked connected transgression justness betterment and improving higher education, has turned his attraction much precocious to the imaginable pitfalls of prediction markets and sports gambling apps, gathering with lawmakers and pushing for stronger guardrails.
Schools including Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin volition person Arnold's grants for probe implicit the adjacent 3 years, Arnold Ventures said successful a property release.
A 2018 Supreme Court determination paved the mode for legalized sports betting successful the U.S., with information increasing successful the years since. An April survey by the Research Institute of Siena University recovered that 27% of Americans person an progressive online sports betting account, up from 19% successful 2024.
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The sports betting manufacture deed a grounds $16.96 cardinal successful gross successful 2025, the American Gaming Association announced earlier this year. And trading measurement connected the apical 2 prediction markets — Kalshi and Polymarket — has grown from little than $5 cardinal successful September to astir $24 cardinal successful April, according to an analysis by Pew Research Center.
Sports are the astir fashionable benignant of lawsuit declaration by measurement connected prediction markets, which run distinctly and are taxable to a antithetic regulatory authorization than accepted gambling sites. As of February, astir 87% of bets made connected Kalshi successful the past twelvemonth were connected sports, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Thirty-nine states, positive the District of Columbia, person legalized sports betting since 2018.
"A batch of states jumped into legalizing sports betting successful 2018. And I deliberation that they were precise attracted to the imaginable taxation revenue," Arnold said. "It's precise appealing for a authorities legislature to get wealth from a voluntary taxation alternatively than a mandatory tax."
"But our statement is that some the strength and the entree has changed dramatically, for not lone sports betting but for a fig of different vices," helium continued. "As legislators are reasoning astir what we bash with this and bash we legalize, determination needs to beryllium the realization that this merchandise has changed."
Arnold compares the maturation of online sports betting to marijuana legalization and the improvement of pornography.
"Marijuana contiguous is simply a precise antithetic merchandise than what it was a procreation ago. It's conscionable a overmuch stronger intensity, and the entree has increased.," Arnold said. "You deliberation astir pornography. The strength of the merchandise has accrued dramatically, the easiness of entree has eased dramatically.
"So sports betting, evidently the entree has accrued dramatically, but the merchandise has changed arsenic well."
Arnold Ventures successful 2025 funded probe grants to survey the effects of legalized marijuana.
Access and strength person besides accrued for sports betting. A fixed idiosyncratic tin spot aggregate bets connected a azygous crippled without ever leaving the couch. Forty-six percent of men betwixt 18 and 49 are bettors, according to the Siena survey from this spring, and critics argue it could beryllium driving antagonistic fiscal impacts for young men.
The contented has caught the attraction of lawmakers connected Capitol Hill, wherever a flurry of proposals person been introduced since the commencement of the year.
Some, similar a measure introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., would prohibition prediction marketplace lawsuit contracts connected sports, elections, warfare and authorities actions. Another, from Sens. John Curtis, R-Utah, and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., specifically seeks to barroom prediction markets similar Kalshi and Polymarket from allowing sports bets connected their platforms.
Meanwhile authorities from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., seeks to make stronger guardrails for online sports betting by empowering states to make their ain laws, restrict advertizing and prohibit definite kinds of prop bets, which are wagers connected a circumstantial lawsuit oregon statistic wrong a game, arsenic opposed to the last outcome.
Arnold has met with lawmakers connected Capitol Hill astir the issue, but astir of his effort is directed astatine the authorities level, wherever sports betting is regulated. Prediction markets, which diagnostic peer-to-peer contracts arsenic opposed to bets against the house, are regulated federally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
"We are precise actively talking to authorities legislators astir their determination to legalize, due to the fact that bills to legalize are coming done authorities legislatures each year," Arnold said. "And determination are besides the ones who person already legalized and are reasoning astir the close guardrails."
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi person a commercialized narration that includes lawsuit acquisition and a number investment.
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