Representative Tom Stevens urges repeal of state lottery statutes, calls for ban on predictive markets
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Summary
At a Government Operations & Military Affairs meeting on April 14, Rep. Tom Stevens presented H.133 to repeal the state lottery and sports wagering statutes and H.913 to add predictive markets to the state gambling prohibition and impose a 50¢ per-wager fee. He cited a roughly $160 million handle and $7.2 million state net and warned of social harms and federal preemption issues.
Representative Tom Stevens, sponsor of H.133 and H.913, told the House Government Operations & Military Affairs committee on April 14 that he is introducing the measures to roll back state‑sponsored gambling and to block a new class of bets known as predictive markets. He said he represents the Washington‑Chittenden district (Waterbury, Bolton, Huntington and Buels Court) and described gambling as a societal harm that the state should not be promoting.
Stevens said the state’s sports wagering handle in the cited period was roughly $160,000,000 and that the state’s net take was about $7,200,000. "Vermonters had spent $160,000,000 on sports wagering in the calendar year 2025," he said, and added that the state’s share of that handle was small compared with the amounts wagered. He argued that ease of play on phones and app‑based interfaces removes the friction that once moderated impulse betting.
Stevens framed H.133 as a repeal of statutes authorizing the state lottery and sports wagering and said the bill would subject anyone offering those games to the criminal provisions in Title 13. He also described H.913 as a three‑part measure: adding prediction‑market securities and commodities contingent on sports, politics, disasters, war or death to the criminal prohibition; amending Title 9 to declare contingent‑securities agreements void and allow civil recovery for lost money; and inserting a 50¢ per‑wager fee for in‑state sports‑wagering operators.
On data and player counts, Stevens said the state reports roughly 11,000 in‑state accounts across three operators and an average bet figure near $25. Using that rough accounting, he illustrated how account activity could amount to large annual wagers per account. He also noted the state lacks granular purchaser tracking for cash lottery sales, so regulators cannot easily identify individual problem purchasers from ticket sales alone.
A committee member asked whether the state tracks people who buy repeated tickets and whether that data is used to identify gambling‑related harms. Stevens replied there is no practical way to track individual buyers of cash lottery tickets and that much of the recordkeeping that would enable that scrutiny does not exist.
Sophie Sedat of the Office of Legislative Council reviewed both short‑form bills for the committee and cautioned that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has recently filed federal lawsuits against several states seeking to block state regulation of predictive markets. She reiterated that the bills are short form and said counsel will follow up with additional detail as needed.
The committee did not take a vote on H.133 or H.913 during this session; after the presentations members shifted to other business.
Why it matters: Stevens framed the measures as an effort to prioritize public safety and family stability over modest state revenue streams. The bills combine criminal, civil‑recovery and fee changes that, if advanced, would reconfigure how the state approaches both traditional gambling and a new class of prediction‑market wagering.
Next steps: Counsel noted follow‑up for detailed questions; the committee did not vote on either bill at this meeting.
