Utah lawmakers have advanced a bill that would close a loophole in the state’s ban on gambling.
House Bill 243, sponsored by Rep. Joseph Elison, a Republican from Washington County, would ban what’s known as proposition betting — wagers on specific moments in a game, like how many points a player scores, rather than who wins.
“Our state constitution is very, very clear," he said, "we do not allow betting or gambling in any shape or form in the state of Utah.”
During a floor debate for the bill, Elison said its goal was to clarify what lawmakers see as a growing legal gray area.
“All this bill does," he said, "is it simply adds the definition of ‘proposition betting’ to the definition of ‘gambling’ in the state of Utah, period.”
Earlier, at a committee hearing, Utah Attorney General Derek Brown explained that some platforms frame wagers as trades on future outcomes, and this framing is what creates the legal loophole for proposition betting.
“So in other words, you can't bet that the Seahawks are going to win that evening," Brown said. "But you could trade on a potential future outcome in which the Seahawks would win.”
The bill would explicitly ban proposition betting apps like FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetMGM, which allow users to wager on specific player statistics and similar events.
Notably, traditional fantasy football leagues, which are treated as contests of skill, are not a target of the bill. It’s less clear how the bill would affect prediction-style markets like Kalshi or Polymarket, where users can trade on future events like economic data, elections, or sports.
That uncertainty is already sparking legal action.
Earlier this week, Kalshi sued Utah officials. The company operates a federally regulated platform where users trade on future events, and it argues the bill would wrongly classify those trades as illegal betting.
House Bill 243 has already passed the House and now heads to the full Senate for consideration. If the bill is signed into law, Utah will join about a dozen other states that have moved to restrict proposition betting.
