Ohio Is the Third Regulator to Quit the NCPG Over Kalshi as Massachusetts Wavers

The Ohio Casino Control Commission's June resignation letter surfaced at a Massachusetts Gaming Commission meeting last week, where commissioners decided to stay "for now". The national problem-gambling body says taking Kalshi's money is not an endorsement. Three state bodies have decided it is.

• The Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC) withdrew its membership of the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) in a June letter from interim executive director Andromeda Morrison, Legal Sports Report and Gambling News report; the exit became public at a Massachusetts Gaming Commission meeting on 10 September
• "I regret this action is necessary but trust you will understand the Commission's need to ensure that it is not associated with organizations that are affiliated with companies engaged in illegal gambling in Ohio," Morrison wrote
• The trigger is the $2 million Kalshi donated to the NCPG in May for a "Financial Trading Health and Safety Initiative" and a new "Financial Services and Trading" membership category, CDC Gaming reports; the Michigan Gaming Control Board and the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling have also withdrawn
• Massachusetts opted to remain after its research director was told by the NCPG that the initiative does not endorse prediction markets or Kalshi; chairman Jordan Maynard said "when it comes up for renewal, I'm sure we'll have another conversation"
• Ohio's problem-gambling network separately warned this week that prediction markets, open to 18-year-olds under federal rules where Ohio's sportsbooks require 21, are the state's fastest-emerging risk for young adults

A June Letter That Nobody Announced

The Ohio Casino Control Commission ended its membership of the National Council on Problem Gambling in June, in a letter from interim executive director Andromeda Morrison, according to Legal Sports Report, which described the exit as "quiet", and Gambling News. Neither the commission nor the council publicised it; the withdrawal came to light when the Massachusetts Gaming Commission discussed its own membership at a meeting on Thursday, 10 September, CDC Gaming reports. Morrison's letter, as quoted, said: "I regret this action is necessary but trust you will understand the Commission's need to ensure that it is not associated with organizations that are affiliated with companies engaged in illegal gambling in Ohio."

The cause is the NCPG's arrangement with Kalshi. In May the council announced a $2 million donation from the prediction market operator to fund a new initiative on "trader health and safety" and created a "Financial Services and Trading" membership category, CDC Gaming reports. The Michigan Gaming Control Board withdrew in response, telling the NCPG in a letter that Kalshi is in litigation with Michigan and several other states over offering sports event contracts without state gaming licences and that the partnership could undermine state regulatory efforts; the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling followed in August. Ohio's letter, it now emerges, predated both. Gambling News reports the OCCC's position that the council's distinction between accepting a donation and endorsing the donor "is not good enough".

Massachusetts has chosen a different course for now. Its director of research and responsible gaming, Mark Vander Linden, discussed the arrangement with NCPG executive director Heather Maurer and policy director Cole Wogoman, and briefed commissioners on 10 September. The council described the two-year initiative as "a coordinated national initiative to advance responsible trading and trader health within financial market environments", and told him that "the buying and selling of event-based futures contracts can carry risks similar to traditional gambling, including impulsive behavior, financial harm, and the potential for escalating gambling-related issues". Asked whether that meant the NCPG endorsed prediction markets or Kalshi, the council said no. The five-member commission expressed support for the council's mission and stayed. "When it comes up for renewal, I'm sure we'll have another conversation," chairman Jordan Maynard said. Massachusetts is itself in litigation with Kalshi, with a preliminary injunction against its sports contracts paused pending appeal to the state's Supreme Judicial Court.

The Ohio Context

Ohio's regulator has been among the most direct in calling prediction markets' sports contracts illegal gambling in the state, and its problem-gambling sector is now treating them as a distinct risk. Derek Longmeier of the Problem Gambling Network of Ohio told WBNS this week that platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, accessible to 18-year-olds under federal regulation where Ohio's licensed sportsbooks require customers to be 21, are the state's biggest emerging challenge, and described a university student whose small trades escalated into losses of tens of thousands of dollars before the age of 25, Gambling News reports.

A Donation the Council Cannot Return and the States Cannot Accept

The NCPG's position is coherent: a body that exists to reduce gambling harm should want to study harm wherever it occurs, including on exchanges, and the operator most exposed to that harm is a rational funder. The states' position is also coherent: a regulator that has declared a company's product illegal cannot pay dues to an organisation that company funds, because the membership itself becomes evidence in the argument the regulator is having in court. Both are right, which is why this is not resolving. What the Ohio letter adds is that the split is older and wider than it looked: three state bodies had left by August, quietly in Ohio's case, and the one that stayed did so with a warning attached.

"Trader Health" Is the Language of a Product That Wants to Be Regulated Differently

The initiative's name is not incidental. A "Financial Trading Health and Safety Initiative" with a "Financial Services and Trading" membership category places Kalshi inside the vocabulary of markets, not gambling, at the national body whose whole purpose is gambling. The NCPG's own description to Massachusetts, that event contracts "carry risks similar to traditional gambling", concedes the substance while keeping the label, and it is the label the state regulators object to. Every court that has looked at these contracts this month, from the Ninth Circuit to Connecticut, has declined to accept the vocabulary. The problem-gambling council is now the most prominent institution still using it.

The Renewal Conversation Is the One to Watch

Massachusetts did not leave, but Maynard's sentence is a deadline. Between now and the commission's renewal, the Supreme Judicial Court will rule on Kalshi's appeal, and if the state wins, a regulator that has just enforced an injunction against a company will be asked to renew its membership of a body that company funds. Ohio and Michigan have shown what that decision looks like when the litigation is already lost by the exchange. The NCPG has two years of Kalshi funding and, on current form, a shrinking list of the regulators it was founded to work with.

Three states have decided the money and the mission cannot share a membership list. The council is betting the rest will not follow. Its own account of the risks suggests they might.