Congress targets underage betting with facial age estimation bill

Online sportsbooks and prediction markets would have to analyze a user’s face to estimate whether the person is old enough to gamble under bipartisan legislation introduced Wednesday in the U.S. House.

The Facial Recognition to Protect Children Act would require an age check either when a user logs into a platform or before the user places a wager or trades an event contract.

The measure is aimed at children who gain access to accounts belonging to parents, siblings, or other adults after those accounts have already passed conventional identity checks.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, introduced the bill with eight cosponsors, including Republican Reps. Jeff Van Drew, Nick LaLota, and Bruce Westerman. Democratic cosponsors are Kristen McDonald Rivet, Jimmy Panetta, Darren Soto, Tom Suozzi, and Ritchie Torres.

In May, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an inquiry into Polymarket and Kalshi, pressing the two prediction market companies for records on identity verification, geographic restrictions, suspicious trading, and the handling of markets tied to military operations, geopolitical events, and political contests.

Despite the name of the new legislation, the technology described by Gottheimer’s office is more accurately called facial age estimation than facial recognition.

The proposed system would examine facial structure and patterns to estimate the user’s age. Gottheimer’s office said the technology would not store the person’s identity or personal biometric information.

The distinction matters because online sportsbooks already verify information about an account holder and use geolocation systems to determine whether a wager is being placed in a jurisdiction where the platform may operate.

Those controls do not necessarily establish that the person holding the phone during a later session is the adult who opened the account.

Gottheimer said a child can therefore enter a parent’s, older sibling’s, or friend’s account and place a bet without another verification step.

“We’re asking our kids to self-police their way past a system built entirely on the honor code,” Gottheimer said. “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. 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.”

“Prediction markets are becoming more popular, and we need to be realistic about the risks that can come with that for our children,” said Rep. Van Drew. “Kids should not be able to get onto these platforms and start placing bets. This bill puts another protection in place to help stop that from happening and gives parents some added peace of mind.”

The requirement would also extend to prediction markets, which allow customers to trade contracts based on the outcome of elections, economic reports, sporting events, and other developments.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour joined Gottheimer when the bill was announced and said the company already uses measures intended to keep minors off its platform.

Kalshi supports making those protections an industrywide standard.

The proposal comes amid growing concern about the accessibility of gambling through phones. Gottheimer’s office cited research that 36 percent of boys between 11 and 17 had participated in gambling or a gambling-related activity during the previous year.

The rate rose to 40 percent among boys between 14 and 17, while more than one-quarter of those who gambled reported stress, family conflict, or problems at school.

The sponsors also pointed to more than 80 reports of underage betting sent to Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation.

Tennessee sportsbooks flagged more than 400 underage accounts in 2024, compared with roughly 100 a year earlier, according to Gottheimer’s office.

Facial age estimation would add a new barrier, but the effectiveness of the requirement would depend on standards that were not described in the announcement.

The sponsors did not explain what level of accuracy platforms would have to achieve, how they would handle users whose estimated age falls close to the legal threshold, or whether a person rejected by the system could use another method.

The public description also did not identify requirements for detecting photographs, recorded videos, or synthetic faces presented to the camera.

The privacy claim will similarly depend on how the technology is implemented. A system may avoid storing a user’s identity while still capturing and processing a facial image.

The practical protection would turn on whether processing occurs on the user’s device or on a company’s servers, how long images are retained, and whether information is shared with a technology provider.

The bill would nevertheless move online gambling beyond the one-time verification of an account holder. It would require platforms to evaluate the person attempting to use the account, potentially making it more difficult for a child to place wagers through an adult’s saved credentials.

Whether that protection works without blocking lawful users or creating a new stream of biometric data will depend on technical and enforcement provisions that have not yet been publicly explained.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  face biometrics  |  facial age estimation (FAE)  |  gambling  |  U.S. Government