The GOP-controlled Kentucky House voted Thursday to raise the age to gamble on sports to 21 and ban proposition bets, or “prop” bets, on Kentucky college athletes.
Rep. Michael Meredith, R-Oakland, the primary sponsor of House Bill 904, told a legislative committee earlier this month that the provisions had been worked on for months and that the “overwhelming majority of the public” wants the age for sports gambling raised.
“I’m a strong believer in, if you’re 18 and you’re an adult by every other standard, you should be an adult by all standards,” Meredith said earlier this month. “They want the age raised, and so we did it, despite my personal concerns about that.”
On the House floor Thursday, Meredith explained to lawmakers HB 904 would also ban prop bets on individual college athletes in Kentucky. Prop bets are wagers that are made, during the middle of a game, on a specific player’s performance or a specific outcome. The bill would also license and regulate fantasy sports companies and allow horse racing tracks to offer fixed-odds betting alongside pari-mutuel betting.
The bill advanced by a vote of 79-15 with some Republicans opposing the measure.
Meredith’s bill also prohibits horse racing tracks, sports wagering companies and fantasy sports companies in Kentucky from being involved in a prediction market — where an individual can trade, or wager, on predicting the outcome of future events. Prediction market companies including Kalshi and Polymarket have grown in popularity across the country to the point that some sportsbooks have started offering prediction market trading.
“Prediction markets have started moving into the space of betting on ball games, sporting events, and even prop bets on athletics as well,” Meredith said. “There has been a large-scale discussion at the national level, led by states across the country, on what is the place for regulation in these markets. Should states be able to regulate those sports-related event contracts? And we still don’t know the answer to that yet.”
Meredith sponsored the bill that legalized sports wagering in 2023. With a number of states including Kentucky legalizing sports wagering, there’s been growing interest from state legislatures to regulate prop bets, critics arguing such bets can exacerbate problem gambling and create harassment for players.
The bill still has to clear the Kentucky Senate in the final days of this year’s legislative session to become law.