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The Gambling Wire: MGM Takeover Halted, Caesars Moves Forward, and CFTC Trains Its Sights on Prediction-Market Risk

By jili tutorial · September 25, 2026

The Gambling Wire: MGM Takeover Halted, Caesars Moves Forward, and CFTC Trains Its Sights on Prediction-Market Risk

Casino M&A delivered two very different outcomes this week: Barry Diller’s People Inc. walked away from a multi-billion-dollar MGM Resorts bid, while Caesars shareholders officially cleared the way for Tilman Fertitta to take the company private. Meanwhile, the CFTC signaled fresh concerns about prediction markets, state legislators poured fuel on the Kalshi legal fire, and DraftKings spooked investors with its prediction-market ambitions. Here’s everything you need to know from a busy stretch in the gambling world.

Casino M&A Roundup: Diller Drops MGM, Fertitta Wins Caesars

People Inc. Abandons Its Take-Private Pursuit of MGM

Barry Diller’s People Inc. is formally ending its campaign to take MGM Resorts International private. People Inc., which owns roughly 27% of MGM, has withdrawn its earlier proposal to acquire the remaining shares it does not already hold.

That original offer, tabled in June, valued MGM at more than $18 billion and would have paid shareholders $48.30 per share in cash. The decision to walk away was framed as a practical one. In a statement, Diller said: “There are lots of ingredients that go into a proposal of this kind on its way to completion. We didn’t feel the mix was coming together in the way we had hoped and have decided not to pursue taking the company private at this time.”

Despite abandoning the buyout, People Inc. said it continues to believe in MGM’s long-term prospects. For investors, the news signals that a major source of buyout speculation has been removed — though the stock’s reaction will ultimately depend on whether the market believes another suitor could emerge.

Caesars Shareholders Greenlight $17.6B Fertitta Acquisition

On the other side of the Las Vegas Strip, Caesars Entertainment shareholders voted emphatically in favor of the proposed acquisition by Tilman Fertitta’s Fertitta Entertainment.

The math behind the vote is worth parsing carefully. Approximately 133.3 million shares voted in favor, representing 65.4% of all outstanding shares as of the August 21 record date. Roughly 4.3 million shares were cast against, while nearly 5.7 million abstained. Because the deal required support from a majority of Caesars’ roughly 203.8 million outstanding shares, the “for” votes were sufficient to clear the bar — and then some.

The all-cash transaction values Caesars at approximately $17.6 billion, including $11.9 billion of debt. Shareholders are set to receive $31 per share, a figure that reflects the premium Fertitta agreed to pay when the deal was negotiated. The acquisition remains subject to regulatory approvals and standard closing conditions, so there is still a road ahead before ownership formally changes hands.

When completed, the deal will hand Caesars’ vast portfolio of casino properties to a hospitality entrepreneur who already runs his own gaming empire through Golden Nugget and Landry’s. It marks one of the largest casino take-privates in a decade.

CFTC Takes a Hard Look at Prediction Markets — and Margin Trading

The Crackdown on “Mention Markets”

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is shining a brighter spotlight on prediction markets, particularly a category that has officials concerned about manipulation risk: so-called “mention markets.”

These are event contracts whose settlement depends not on a game’s outcome or a macroeconomic number, but on whether a specific individual says a certain word, appears at a particular venue, or interacts with another person. In an appearance on CNBC, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said the agency has had “a lot of concern with these markets,” adding that “a large number of these contracts have issues.”

The unease is not just rhetorical. CFTC staff recently issued an advisory warning that mention contracts carry a “heightened risk of manipulation” because they settle differently from most other contracts. As the advisory notes, these derivatives depend on “the discrete conduct of a named person, and that conduct may be neither independently generated nor externally verifiable.” In plain terms: if a market settles on whether a celebrity says a specific phrase at a press conference, it’s not hard to imagine bad actors trying to influence either the event or the reporting around it.

Could Margin Trading Come to Kalshi?

Selig also addressed the possibility of introducing margin trading to event contracts — a significant potential shift in how these markets operate.

Margin trading allows qualified traders to post only a fraction of a position’s total value, amplifying both potential gains and losses. Kalshi, one of the leading prediction-market platforms, has asked the CFTC for permission to offer this capability to certain users.

Selig said the agency is still evaluating the filing and has not approved it. He was clear that any such program would be narrow in scope: only institutional traders who “meet very stringent eligibility” requirements would qualify, and margin trading would not be available for sports or other popular categories. In other words, even if the CFTC signs off, retail users should not expect leveraged sports wagers to appear on Kalshi anytime soon.

Selig declined to comment further on a potential separate matter — a reported wash-trading investigation involving Kalshi’s cryptocurrency markets. Wash trading, in which an investor simultaneously buys and sells the same asset to create misleading activity, remains an active concern for regulators across all asset classes.

NCLGS Enters the Fray in Kalshi Supreme Court Battle

The legal fight over the future of prediction markets is heating up. The National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS) has filed an amicus brief backing New Jersey’s petition for Supreme Court review of the Third Circuit’s decision favoring Kalshi.

NCLGS’s argument rests on a foundational principle: states — not the federal government — have historically served as the primary regulators of gambling. The organization warned that the Third Circuit’s preemption ruling could have sweeping consequences for state gambling laws and Tribal gaming compacts, including in states that would lose “substantial revenue and other benefits” from those compacts.

The group also highlighted an emerging circuit split between the Third and Ninth Circuits, which have reached different conclusions on the scope of the Commodity Exchange Act’s application to event contracts. When appellate courts disagree on a major question of federal law, the Supreme Court is far more likely to grant certiorari.

In a procedural development, the Supreme Court granted Kalshi a 30-day extension to file its response to New Jersey’s petition. The response is now due November 9th. Gaming attorney Daniel Wallach noted the scheduling consequence: the Third Circuit case will now sit behind the Ninth Circuit litigation in the Supreme Court’s queue, potentially affecting how the justices weigh the competing cases — and whether they wait to see how the other circuit rules before acting.

DraftKings Investors Flinch at Prediction-Market Strategy

DraftKings shares slid approximately 4% on Wednesday morning, driven by a combination of broader market weakness and investor unease over comments from CEO Jason Robins about the company’s prediction-market strategy.

Speaking at the Wells Fargo Consumer Conference on Tuesday, Robins revealed that strong early results in states without legal sports betting could prompt DraftKings to pull forward marketing and promotional spending that had been planned for 2027. The implication: the company sees a viable market for prediction products even in jurisdictions where traditional sports betting has not launched, and it may be willing to spend more aggressively now to capture that demand.

For investors focused on the near term, that was enough to trigger a bout of caution. Accelerated spending typically means tighter margins, and Wall Street has historically punished companies that sacrifice profitability for growth without a clear timeline for the payoff.

Robins, however, argued that DraftKings is well-positioned regardless of how the legal landscape shakes out. His most striking comment — “I would also guess that if prediction markets got shut down by the Supreme Court tomorrow, our share price would pop” — captures the market’s ambivalence. Prediction markets are a massive opportunity, but they also bring regulatory uncertainty and competitive pressure that can weigh on valuations.

The CEO said DraftKings would prefer prediction markets to remain available, describing them as a “significant incremental opportunity.” The early numbers support the enthusiasm: DraftKings’ prediction-market volume has grown to nearly 2.5 times its July level, more than a million customers have engaged with its Predict product, and the company claims a near-double-digit share of sports prediction-market consumer volume.

Sports Betting Drives Prediction-Market Volume to Record Levels

New research from the Pew Research Center underscores just how much sports have reshaped the prediction-market landscape.

Combined monthly trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket more than doubled between May and July, jumping from $25.7 billion to approximately $53 billion, according to Pew’s analysis of data from The Block. Sports accounted for the lion’s share of that growth. During June and July — a period that overlapped with the FIFA World Cup — sports trading exceeded $58 billion on Kalshi and approached $22 billion on Polymarket.

Pew found that sports have become the most-traded category on both platforms by a wide margin. The World Cup, however, was not the only driver. Combined volume remained around $47 billion in August, a slight pullback that suggests at least some of the demand is structural rather than event-specific. Preliminary September data indicates activity is ticking up again alongside the start of the football season.

Other findings highlight the diversification of the sector. Cryptocurrency trading on Kalshi reached $6 billion in July, and Polymarket US’s share of total Polymarket volume rose from just 4% in January to 39% in July — a sign that American traders are increasingly comfortable engaging with these platforms explicitly designed for them.

Curaçao Gaming Authority Suffers Major Data Breach

In a story with serious implications for the offshore gambling sector, the Curaçao Gaming Authority has been hit by a significant data breach involving tens of thousands of confidential licensing documents, including ownership, financial, and identification records.

German security researcher Lilith Wittmann said she had access to the regulator’s systems for roughly nine months before going public. Wittmann is no stranger to this territory — she previously claimed responsibility for a breach of the Malta Gaming Authority earlier this year.

The Curaçao documents have been shared with media organizations, and reporting is already raising uncomfortable questions about the ownership and regulatory oversight of hundreds of offshore gambling operators. For an industry that relies heavily on Curaçao licensing to serve international markets, the breach is a major blow to the jurisdiction’s credibility.

North Carolina Fines Underdog and bet365

State regulators in North Carolina handed down a combined $250,000 in penalties this week, hitting two of the industry’s biggest names over compliance lapses.

Underdog agreed to pay $175,000 after self-reporting that it failed to properly verify the age and identity of 38 accounts, which allowed underage individuals to access its sportsbook. The violations occurred while Underdog still operated a sportsbook in the state — a business it has since wound down. In December 2025, the company voluntarily surrendered its license to focus on prediction markets.

Bet365, meanwhile, was fined $75,000 for contacting customers who were on the state’s self-exclusion list. Self-exclusion programs are designed to give problem gamblers a way to ban themselves from betting platforms; contacting those individuals is a serious compliance breach that regulators are increasingly eager to punish.

Both penalties serve as a reminder that as the gambling landscape evolves — and as prediction markets blur the lines between sports betting, finance, and gaming — state regulators are watching compliance programs closely. The companies that thrive in this environment will be the ones that treat verification, responsible gambling, and regulatory reporting as core operational priorities rather than afterthoughts.