The Texas Medical Association is calling for a minimum age of 21 and new safeguards for online prediction market platforms, warning that the fast-growing betting apps could put Texas adolescents at risk of addiction. The association announced the push in a June 30 news release.
Prediction market platforms allow users to bet on future events, from the outcome of sporting events to election results, through apps typically accessed on smartphones. Because the platforms are not classified as gambling under the legal definition, they fall outside Texas gambling laws and are instead regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the association noted.
Texas physicians recently adopted new TMA policy recommending a minimum age of 21 for participating in the platforms, in line with gambling and sports betting apps. “It is not considered gambling [by legal definition], although it has all of the psychological trappings of gambling,” said Lindy McGee, MD, former chair of TMA’s Committee on Child and Adolescent Health.
Physicians are particularly concerned about young males, who the release said are more likely to develop problem-gambling behaviors that can lead to addiction and other negative behavioral health effects. More than 35% of boys aged 11 to 17 report having gambled in the past year, according to one study cited by the association, while another found 58% of 18- to 22-year-olds surveyed had engaged in at least one sports betting activity.
“The adolescent brain is primed to take risks,” making young people susceptible to anything addictive, Dr. McGee said, adding that “the younger you start, the more likely you are to become addicted to it.” She said she knows teens who accumulated thousands of dollars in debt on online platforms before turning 21, saying “it’s like high school children are walking around with Vegas in their pockets.”
Beyond the age requirement, the TMA policy calls for restricting prediction market advertising near schools and parks, limiting such ads on social media and gaming platforms that target adolescents, prohibiting advertising that uses celebrities, cartoons, or characters from games and shows marketed toward young people, and requiring ads to state that participation is only for people aged 21 or older.
The physicians’ push comes as the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs conducts an interim study on what it describes as the sudden inundation of prediction market gambling and the exploitation of federal law to circumvent Texas gambling prohibitions. TMA, the largest state medical society in the nation with more than 60,000 physician and medical student members, advocates for improvements to state law based on policy adopted by its physician members.