Bipartisan House Bill Would Mandate Facial Age Checks for Sportsbooks and Prediction Markets

A bipartisan bill introduced in the US House would require online sportsbooks and prediction markets to verify users’ ages with facial recognition before they can place a bet or trade, with prediction market operator Kalshi backing the measure.

The Facial Recognition to Protect Children Act, introduced by Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey on July 15, would require platforms to run a facial age check either at login or before a wager is placed. According to Gottheimer’s office, the technology would read facial structure and patterns to estimate a user’s age without storing identity or personal biometric information, an approach known in the industry as facial age estimation, which infers age from an image rather than matching a face against a database and is already spreading in retail for self-checkout age checks.

The bill responds to what its sponsors describe as an honor-system failure. “A kid can log into a parent’s, an older sibling’s, or a friend’s account and place a bet with no verification at all. Nobody checks. That’s it. That’s the whole system,” Gottheimer said. “We wouldn’t accept that at a casino in Las Vegas. We shouldn’t accept it on the phone in our kid’s back pocket.”

His office cites research from Common Sense Media finding that 36 percent of boys aged 11 to 17 gambled in the past year, rising to 40 percent among those 14 to 17. Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation has received more than 80 reports of underage betting, while sportsbooks in Tennessee flagged more than 400 underage accounts in 2024, up from roughly 100 the year before. Americans wagered roughly 160 billion dollars on sports last year, generating about 16 billion dollars in industry revenue.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour joined the introduction. His company knows the scrutiny firsthand: House Oversight lawmakers recently asked Polymarket and Kalshi for their identity verification and know-your-customer records. Mansour said the company already runs measures to keep minors off its platform “but this can’t just be one company’s responsibility — it has to be an industry standard.” Parent advocacy group ParentsRISE also supports the bill, which counts eight original cosponsors from both parties, including Republicans Jeff Van Drew, Nick LaLota, and Bruce Westerman.

The bill now heads to committee, where its mandate will test how far Congress is willing to write a specific biometric modality into consumer protection law.

Sources: Office of Rep. Josh Gottheimer

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team