Since the start of the year, young adults between 18 and 21 have traded an estimated $5.4 billion – that’s right, billion—on the Kalshi prediction market, according to a CNN analysis.
Just to put that in perspective: That’s enough to buy an entire MLB franchise. Or 12,000 typical U.S. homes. Or more than 500,000 tickets to this year’s World Cup finals.
All that cash involves people who are too young to legally gamble in most of the United States.
It’s not surprising that young Americans have latched onto forms of online betting like prediction markets. These markets are the newest, sleekest escalation of a well-oiled digital machine that molds kids’ brains and keeps them hooked.
As a co-founder of a nonprofit that works to address youth mental health and the harms of digital platforms–plus a mom of five kids and a former teacher – I’m concerned. Without change, prediction markets could supercharge mental health and addiction issues – fueling anxiety, depression, loneliness, financial distress, and even suicide mortalities and ideation.
It’s no secret that the digital pipeline starts early. From toddlers to teenagers, products are engineered around instant rewards, compulsive engagement, and habit formation. Platforms harvest data on kids’ habits, moods, ages, genders, emotional states, and vulnerabilities and produce endless content and ads that keep users hooked. Case in point: Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to settle claims that it built Instagram and Facebook to be addictive for young people.
Prediction markets then capitalize on the digital environments that profit from young people’s compulsions. They build a new addiction bridge from teenage years to adulthood, in critical windows of brain development.
There’s a good reason that nearly all states restrict people from gambling until the age of 21. From 18 to 21, the brain is hyper-sensitive to excitement, but isn’t yet fully capable of controlling impulses or evaluating risk. That sets up young adults for a wave of dangers: compulsive behavior, financial distress, severe mental health issues, and suicidal behaviors. Indeed, roughly one in five people with a gambling disorder has attempted suicide.
Now, to address a common counterargument: Some claim that 18-year-olds should be able to participate in prediction markets because they are already able to partake in other significant milestones, like voting and investing in the stock market. But prediction markets are fundamentally different. They exploit digital addiction to generate profit. And they do so at a particularly vulnerable stage in people’s lives, creating potentially lifelong consequences.
As one financial educator and author, Paris Woods, recently shared, prediction markets can create a “cycle of addiction and debt.” Woods furthered, “It’s not just eroding the present and sort of taking their hard-earned money out of their hands at 18 or 19, but it’s actually taking money out of that 40 or 50-year-old version of themselves.”
Right now, there are serious questions about who should regulate prediction markets – a federal regulator like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or individual states. We don’t have to settle that debate before we act. There are multiple commonsense conditions that can be set into motion, like increasing the age minimums for prediction markets, at least until the age of 21 or later. We can also ensure that prediction platforms include limits on deposits, losses, and time spent – plus self-exclusion tools, which enable users to block themselves from accessing platforms. And crucially, deceptive and youth-targeted marketing should be strictly prohibited.
Beyond prediction markets specifically, it’s also crucial to chip away at the lifelong digital pipeline that makes prediction markets so appealing in the first place. Lawmakers should pass regulations that compel companies to be more transparent about how their algorithms feed young people and promote risky content, or target children based on data on their spending habits, impulsivity, or risk-taking.
Fortunately, there are models for this. My Governor, Mikie Sherrill, just signed a law limiting how platforms can use children’s data and push algorithmic content towards minors. And New York and Illinois recently passed bipartisan laws that require more AI transparency and safety.
Everyday, more people are waking up to this emerging threat and finding solutions to combat a crisis that continues to intensify. The current digital environment has already taught children to crave the next notification, loot box, and reward. Now, our society is pushing them to want the next bet.
Let me be clear: It doesn’t have to be this way. We can ensure that America’s kids are nourished by their families, schools, and communities – not the whims of algorithms.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
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