Wynn's Billings Breaks Ranks With MGM and Caesars on Prediction Markets

On the opening main stage at G2E, the chief executives of MGM Resorts and Caesars called prediction markets illegal, "obscene" and a risk to the whole industry. Wynn Resorts' Craig Billings said his company had no "skin in the game", and recalled what the Strip lost by fighting California's tribes.

• Wynn Resorts chief executive Craig Billings said on 29 September at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas that "we don't take a political position on prediction markets because we don't have skin in the game", according to The Nevada Independent
• Billings said broad distribution of online gaming and betting "offers some benefit to Las Vegas", that he was "not opining on the legality", and that Wynn had seen no direct effects so far
• He compared the fight to the Strip's campaigns against California's tribal gaming ballot measures of 1998 and 2000, which he said left "a whole army of people in California that were inert to coming to Las Vegas"
• On the same panel, MGM's Bill Hornbuckle called prediction markets' push into Utah "obscene" and said Nevada regulators had warned MGM its licences were at stake, while Caesars' Tom Reeg called the swap argument "ludicrous"
• The American Gaming Association's Bill Miller told the conference the industry was "well positioned to win" if the dispute reaches the Supreme Court

Three Strip Chief Executives, Two Positions

The question came from the moderator, CNBC's Contessa Brewer, at "CEO Outlook: The Global State of Gaming", the opening main-stage session of G2E at The Venetian Expo on Tuesday 29 September. Two of the three panellists answered as the American Gaming Association (AGA) has spent the year answering. The third did not.

"We don't take a political position on prediction markets because we don't have skin in the game," Billings said, according to The Nevada Independent, whose report published on Saturday drew out his position. "The broad distribution of online gaming, the broad distribution of betting, offers some benefit to Las Vegas. I'm not opining on the legality." He said Wynn, which operates Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas, had not seen direct effects from prediction markets, "but certainly indirect impacts [could happen] over time." CDC Gaming reported the same remarks with slightly different wording; we found no official transcript or recording of the session.

Billings then reached for history. In 1998 and 2000 California voters approved tribal gaming ballot measures with more than 60% support, measures the Strip opposed. Billings said many Strip operators "very surreptitiously funneled money" to those campaigns. "Of course, they lost, and what did we end up with? We ended up with a whole army of people in California that were inert to coming to Las Vegas," he said. California's tribal casinos now generate more than $12.6 billion a year in gaming revenue, according to the Nevada Independent's reading of National Indian Gaming Commission data. Covers reported that Billings also warned that participants in other markets had pushed activity until it produced public resistance and new regulation, and that the prospect of Congress becoming involved in a gaming regulatory question should concern an industry built on state-by-state rules.

MGM and Caesars Want Them Licensed or Gone

Bill Hornbuckle, chief executive of MGM Resorts, said it was "obscene" that prediction markets were operating in Utah, one of two states, with Hawaii, that bans all forms of gambling. "That [state] wants nothing to do with gambling. It's their right," he said, according to The Nevada Independent. "It's no tax, no jobs, and I could go on and on. The cavalier approach by some of these guys in their leadership group is hurting the industry. If they want to play by the rules, they want to come to Nevada and get a license and do what we all do, then God bless them." He also said, according to InGame, that "Nevada regulators have absolutely said to us, 'If you stretch out and do this, it's going to impact your licensing,'" and Yogonet reported that MGM had looked at entering prediction markets in early 2025, likely through BetMGM, before backing away.

Tom Reeg of Caesars Entertainment compared the moment to the early years of daily fantasy sports and called the products illegal. "The fig leaf is that [a contract] is a 'swap.' It's ludicrous," he said, according to InGame. He noted that before Caesars agreed its $17.6 billion sale to Fertitta Entertainment in May, Kalshi had listed a market on whether Caesars would be acquired in 2026. "There was nothing in their regulations that prevented me from placing a wager on that, which is astonishing," Reeg said. "Obviously, I didn't." His concern, he added, was that "something awful is going to come out [or] going to happen in this interim period because of the lack of regulation and oversight. That's going to tar all of us."

The AGA's president and chief executive, Bill Miller, opened the conference by saying prediction markets take sports wagers without paying gaming taxes and ignore state law and tribal sovereignty, and that they had lost about 90% of their court cases with states, including the last 15, according to The Nevada Independent. "If this ultimately ends at the Supreme Court, we have the facts on our side and are well positioned to win," he said.

Billings Is Neutral Because Wynn Can Afford to Be

The split on the stage follows the balance sheets. Caesars runs Caesars Sportsbook and MGM co-owns BetMGM, so every sports contract traded on Kalshi is a bet their online businesses did not take, and BetMGM's chief executive, Adam Greenblatt, told The Nevada Independent that prediction markets had cut heavily into traditional sports betting during the World Cup. Wynn has no such exposure. It launched WynnBET in 2020 and began closing it in August 2023, calling the "ultra-competitive sports betting landscape" a drain on resources. What Wynn sells is the Las Vegas trip, and Billings' "distribution" argument is the marketing case for anything that keeps sports and gambling in front of people who might fly in. That is a coherent position for a resort company, but it is a business position, not a neutral one, and it carries no cost for Wynn because the revenue at risk belongs to its neighbours.

The California Analogy Is About Customers, Not Courts

Billings' point is that the Strip once spent money opposing a product its own customers wanted, lost at the ballot box, and alienated the people it needed. That is a fair warning about tone at a time when the AGA is building its case around the exchanges' users, with research it says shows prediction-market users overestimate their maths skills. But the comparison has limits. California's tribes won the legal right to operate through the voters; Kalshi is arguing that it never needed state permission at all, and the courts have mostly disagreed, including the Ninth Circuit in Nevada's own case. His sharper point may be the one Covers reported: that a fight escalated far enough brings Congress into gaming regulation, which is the single federal regime the prediction markets want and the state-licensed industry has always resisted.

Neutral on Politics Is Not Neutral on Licensing

Billings was careful to say he was not commenting on legality, and with reason. Wynn holds Nevada gaming licences, and the Nevada Gaming Control Board has made plain that sports event contracts are, in its chairman's words, indistinguishable from sports bets. In November 2025, DraftKings and FanDuel gave up their Nevada licence applications after the board said their plans for sports event contracts were incompatible with participating in Nevada's gaming industry. Hornbuckle's account of the warning MGM received points the same way. Wynn's neutrality is about lobbying and public posture; nothing Billings said suggests it would offer, or partner with, a prediction market while it holds a Nevada licence.

The Strip's biggest operators agree prediction markets are a threat. They disagree about whether fighting them loudly is a threat too.