Washington Bill Would Require Facial Recognition Checks Before Bets on Sportsbooks and Prediction Markets

Congressman Josh Gottheimer introduced the “Facial Recognition to Protect Children Act” on July 15, with a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour backing the push. For PSPs, sportsbooks, and prediction market operators, the point is simple: if this becomes a federal standard, age checks would move from account opening to the moment of betting.

1. The bill would require a facial recognition check before any bet or trade on a prediction market, and again when a user logs in and before a bet is placed on sportsbooks and prediction market platforms. In practice, that means the platform would assess the person holding the device, not just the person who created the account.
2. Supporters say the current setup leaves too many gaps. Most platforms verify age only at account creation, so anyone with access to the device could place a bet. Gottheimer’s example was blunt: a kid can log into a parent’s, older sibling’s, or friend’s account and bet with no verification at all.
3. The bill was introduced against a backdrop of scale and underage exposure. Last year, Americans wagered about $160 billion on sports, producing about $16 billion in revenue. Research cited in the proposal says more than a third of boys aged 11 to 17 have gambled in some way in the past year, with higher numbers among older teens and a concerning share showing signs of addiction and problem gambling.
4. State regulators are already seeing the issue. Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation has received dozens of underage betting reports, and Tennessee sportsbooks shut down more than 400 accounts connected to minors in 2024. Those are only the cases that surface inside the regulated gambling framework.
5. The technology itself is not cleanly solved. Facial recognition can estimate age, but lighting, camera quality, and distinct facial features can throw it off. The bill’s supporters also say the system will not store biometric data, but it still has to process images somewhere, even if only briefly. Cybersecurity experts cited in the text say automation is rarely enough and human review remains necessary when decisions have consequences.

Kalshi has already supported the bill and called for a federal standard to protect minors. For operators and payment providers, the operational question is not whether age-gating is useful in theory; it is where the check sits in the flow, who bears the friction, and how biometric processing intersects with compliance and privacy obligations.