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Can Face ID Stop Teen Gamblers? Prediction Market Kalshi Is Betting on It
By Pete Grieve MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Kalshi tightens age checks as teen betting rises and lawmakers push new rules.
Kalshi announced a new set of “safeguards” on Monday, including default face ID verification, designed to prevent children from accessing the app.
The company wants to make sure that users are who they say they are — and that they’re old enough to bet — as teenagers are gaining interest in prediction markets and using their parents or siblings’ identities to gamble.
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The move from Kalshi comes as lawmakers, nonprofits and school communities warn that young people, especially boys ages 11 to 17, are wagering underage on sports betting websites, prediction markets and online crypto casinos. Among boys this age, 36% said they had gambled in the past year, according to a July survey from Common Sense Media.
In Congress, the bipartisan Prediction Market Act of 2026, introduced last week by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Dave McCormick, R-Pa., would mandate age verification requirements in prediction markets “to protect vulnerable consumers from predatory practices.” (It would also ban members of Congress, the president, vice president and other senior officials from trading on prediction markets.)
Kalshi’s Monday morning news release directly recognized the brewing legislation, aiming to get a step ahead of Congress. “Today, we’re announcing that Kalshi is proactively implementing measures outlined in the bill, and more,” the company said.
Face identification is now a default verification step “for users who have enabled Face ID on their devices,” according to Kalshi. “Parents should activate Face ID to ensure minors do not access their parents’ accounts,” the company added in the release.
Kalshi’s plan to prevent underage use
Kalshi’s critics are unlikely to be fully satisfied with the latest safeguards, and the company’s partnerships with influencers will continue to be scrutinized.
According to Common Sense Media founder James Steyer, youth gambling is a worsening national issue. “Through the games they play, the social media platforms they use every day and their friends, gambling has become a fact of many boys’ day-to-day lives — and often in ways parents may not recognize,” he said in a January release.
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Teens are getting a heavy dose of prediction market advertising on their screens, whether it’s intentional on the part of marketing departments or not. For example, Kalshi is the jersey sponsor for the Baller League USA, a six-versus-six soccer competition with celebrities, former pros and influencers. Team managers such as YouTube star IShowSpeed and video game streamer xQc have massive teenage followings.
In its news release, Kalshi said its safety measures are meant to block “motivated minors” who “try to circumvent [verification] by using family members’ identification (parents, older siblings, etc.).” People under 18 are allowed to monitor markets, but they are prohibited from trading, according to Kalshi’s policies.
Parents with Kalshi accounts are now being advised to turn on two-factor authentication, and they can use a new feature called ID Check to see if anyone is logging into the app with their identification. And Kalshi said it is adding selfie requirements for certain users considered higher risk.
These measures follow other recent steps by the company to polish its brand identity, as Kalshi wants to distinguish itself from the “wild west” reputation of prediction markets.
The barrage of insider trading headlines isn’t helping with that mission, but business hasn’t slowed a beat. Kalshi reached $14.8 billion in trading volume last month, a record.
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Pete Grieve is a New York-based reporter who covers personal finance news. At Money, Pete reports stories that affect Americans’ wallets on topics including insurance, autos, housing, credit cards, retirement and taxes. He studied political science and photography at the University of Chicago, where he was editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon, the student newspaper. Pete began his career as a professional journalist in 2019. Prior to joining Money, he was a health reporter for Spectrum News based in Columbus, Ohio, where he wrote digital stories and appeared on TV to provide coverage to a statewide audience. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN Politics. Pete received extensive journalism training through Report for America, a nonprofit organization that places reporters in newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities, and has attended journalism conferences from organizations including Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. He has discussed his reporting in interviews with outlets including the Columbia Journalism Review, This Morning With Gordon Deal and WBEZ (Chicago's NPR station). He’s been a panelist at the Chicago Headline Club’s FOIA Fest and he received the Institute on Political Journalism’s $2,500 Award for Excellence in Collegiate Reporting in 2017. An essay he wrote for Grey City magazine was later published in a 2020 book, Remembering J. Z. Smith: A Career and its Consequence.