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For more than a century, Utah has kept gambling almost entirely out of the state. There are no casinos, no lotteries and no racetracks that allow bets, a prohibition rooted in the conservative ideals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which views gambling as a vice that leads to selfishness and addiction.But now, the state is fighting a new, more challenging battle to keep gambling outside its borders. It’s on the verge of enacting a law intended to undercut prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, which allow anyone with a smartphone to wager on anything from whether it will rain in Los Angeles to whether the United States will go to war.While regulators and other states are still debating whether those markets constitute finance or gambling, Utah has already made up its mind.“We are putting a casino in the pocket of every single American, and they are targeting especially young people,” said Gov. Spencer Cox. “It is really awful what they are doing, and we are going to make sure this doesn’t happen in our state.”Cox said he will sign the legislation, putting conservative Utah at odds with the federal government. Kalshi has already sued the state, and the company is backed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating financial markets.The conflict puts Utah, a place that’s not known for picking fights, on the frontlines of a cultural, political and economic battle sweeping the country. On one side is a state deeply rooted in what is widely known as the Mormon church, where both politicians and faith leaders have treated the issue as a moral crusade. On the other is a growing industry Kalshi and Polymarket are estimated to be worth $20 billion each after their last fundraising rounds with connections in Washington that may offer some regulatory protection.President Donald Trump‘s eldest son is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket and an investor in the latter. Trump’s social media platform Truth Social is also launching its own cryptocurrency-based prediction market called Truth Predict.Whoever wins this round could shape how other states handle the issue in the future.“What’s at stake here is whether states will be able to regulate gambling or if gambling is going to be subsumed into finance and ultimately regulated by Congress,” said Todd Phillips, a professor at Georgia State University who has written extensively about prediction market regulation. Utah takes aim at prop betting Polymarket and Kalshi allow participants to buy and sell contracts tied to the probable outcome of an event. Contracts are typically priced between one cent and 99 cents, which roughly translates to the percentage of customers who believe that event will happen.The companies argue they offer products that allow customers to manage risk, like how farmers can buy corn futures to lock in the price of their crops ahead of time. And derivative markets like the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange have long offered what are known as binary options to investors, which bet on whether an event will or will not happen.But unlike those derivative markets, the bulk of Kalshi’s trading volume and roughly half of Polymarket’s are now tied to sports. Kalshi said it saw more than $1 billion in volume traded on the Super Bowl alone.Utah is seeking to limit prediction markets from doing business in the state by taking aim at proposition betting in sports, which can be a significant source of their revenue.The bill that Cox plans to sign would expand the state’s gambling ban to include wagers on certain events happening in a game rather than the game’s outcome. An example of these “prop bets” would be how well a particular player performs, or a team hitting a specific threshold like rebounds or other metrics.The legislation also aims to stop sportsbooks companies like FanDuel and DraftKings that have set up their own prediction markets, which analysts say could allow the companies to get around state gambling prohibitions.Because of the vocal opposition of Utah officials, Kalshi preemptively sued the state in late February, asking a federal judge to stop Utah from enforcing its gambling restrictions on the platform. The judge has yet to rule on Kalshi’s request. Other judges in Nevada and Massachusetts have issued early rulings in favor of states looking to ban Kalshi and Polymarket from offering sports betting in their states, while judges in New Jersey in Tennessee have ruled in favor of Kalshi.Kalshi argues its product is different from sportsbooks companies or casinos because customers are betting against each other instead of against the “house,” spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Trump has agreed with Kalshi and has asserted that it has exclusive regulatory oversight of prediction markets. The agency argues states cannot ban the products from operating in their jurisdiction just because they are morally opposed to them.“To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear, we will see you in court,” chairman Michael Selig said recently in a video posted to social media. A moral crusade with religious roots It’s the first major issue in which Cox has clashed with Trump in the year and a half since the Republican governor worked his way into Trump’s good graces after not voting for him in 2016 and 2020.Patrick Mason, the chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, said he is not surprised to see Cox and other Utah Republicans take a stand against prediction markets, even if it means going against their own party’s leadership in Washington. In the state, where about half of the 3.5 million residents are Latter-day Saints, even a simple game of church bingo is a rare sight.“Maybe they play for M&Ms, but never money,” he said.All the state’s major politicians, including the governor, lieutenant governor and its entire congressional delegation, are members of the church headquartered in Salt Lake City. When they view an issue as moral rather than political, the faith’s teachings often take precedence over appeasing the party, Mason explained.Church doctrine prohibits gambling in any form, saying it is motivated by “a desire to get something for nothing” and is destructive to individuals and families.“The idea that it goes against a sense of work ethic, a kind of fair exchange, has always been at the heart of the way a lot of people think about themselves in terms of Utah identity, and certainly Latter-day Saint identity and ethics,” Mason said.Because of Utah’s religious roots, the state has prohibited gambling since it was admitted to the Union in 1895. Along with Hawaii, it has the strictest gambling prohibitions in the country. Utah doesn’t even allow broad multi-state lotteries like Powerball or Mega Millions. Utah leads on both state and federal fronts Phillips, the professor focused on industry regulation, said if Congress does not step in to clarify whether these new prediction markets are legal, the issue will be left to the courts.“The line between gambling and finance is very, very fine,” Phillips said. “There’s a reason why Congress has, over and over again, stepped in to define and regulate financial markets when the products skew too close to gambling.”There is already some moement on Capitol Hill, led in part by another Utah Republican.Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah and Democratic Rep. Salud Carbajal of California introduced bipartisan legislation this week to more aggressively regulate prediction markets. The bill would prohibit the platforms from allowing bets on war, assassinations, terrorist attacks or election outcomes, and allow states to ban sports-related betting.“We, as a society, should not be taking bets on whether we are going to invade Cuba,” Moore said.Democratic senators have also said they will introduce legislation to ban wagers on violence.“It’s insane this is legal,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on social media.In court filings, Kalshi has tried to argue that its sports prediction market has economic utility and usefulness. It uses an example of an insurance company that underwrites the careers of college athletes using prediction markets to hedge the risk. Kalshi also argues that hotels, travel agencies and stadium management companies may be able to use prediction markets to hedge their risk against underperforming sports.Moore said he is not swayed by Kalshi and Polymarket’s economic arguments.“Utah’s economic outlook has been strong for many years,” he said. “I see no need why we need to embrace these as an economic tool.” Ken Sweet and Hannah Schoenbaum, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
In March 2022, Congress passed a law mandating that, to commemorate the law enforcement officers who responded to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, a plaque needed to be placed on the western front of the Capitol building listing each of the officers names. The law stipulated that this plaque should be up within a year. As of early 2026, though, the finished plaque was collecting dust in the depths of the Capitols basement next to a pile of tools and maintenance equipment. For the past three years, the plaques future has become caught up in a game of partisan cat and mouse. After leadership in the House shifted to Republicans in 2023, multiple Democrats claimed that House Speaker Mike Johnson purposefully stalled the plaques installation. Johnson failed to give the go-ahead for its installation to the Architects of the Capitol, the steward of the Capitol building that was charged by Congress with commissioning and mounting the plaque. These delays continued for so long that two of the officers involved in the attack, Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, sued the Architects of the Capitol last summer. Finally, on March 7, the plaque went upalbeit inside a hallway without public accessand it was all thanks to one clever design add-on: a tiny QR code. A commemorative plaque gets caught in design drama Before the plaque finally made its way to the Capitol, most Democrats who spoke on the matter were of the mind that Republican leaders were strategically delaying its display as much as possible. Oddly enough, Johnson tried to refute these claims by shifting the blame onto the plaques actual design. Back in May 2025, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a news conference that the reason for the delay was that Republicans, directed by their puppet master Donald Trump, have been told, Try to erase January 6 as if it has never happened. But in an interview with PBS on January 6, a spokesperson for Johnson said that the plaque could not go up because of logistics, claiming that they had not found a way to fit the 3,000 officers names onto the plaque. Presumably, Johnsons team was referring to the original language of the March 2022 law, which stated that the Architect of the Capitols plaque needed to list the names of all of the officers of the United States Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and protective entities who responded to the violence that occurred at the United States Capitol. This constraint, they appeared to argue, made the project not implementable. Honor is a socialthat is, publicrecognition” But Johnsons hesitance to approve the plaques installation was ultimately overridden in early January, when Senators Jeff Merkley and Thom Tillis helmed a resolution ordering the plaques display, which was passed unanimously in the Senate. When the plaque finally did make it to the walls of the Capitol, the Architects of the Capitol addressed Johnsons design concerns with a simple fix: a tiny QR code, set in its own frame next to the plaque, that links to a list of all of the officers present on January 6. According to a report from The Washington Post, that list goes on for 45 pages. [Photo: Getty Images] The plaque itself is a fairly small bronze rectangle that includes an image of the Capitol building with the phrase, On behalf of a grateful Congress, this plaque honors the extraordinary individuals who bravely protected and defended this symbol of democracy on January 6, 2021. Their heroism will never be forgotten. Beneath it is a list of the law enforcement departments who lent their help during the attack. For the two officers who sued the Architects of the Capitol, this outcome is too little, too late. This is a fine stopgap, however they are not yet within full compliance of the law and the weight of a judicial ruling would help secure the memorial against future tampering, Hodges wrote on Twitter. Our lawsuit persists. On March 10, Hodges and Dunn filed a motion asking a judge to allow their lawsuit to proceed. The document argues that the plaque, which was hung inside a pair of Capitol doors, shouldve been affixed to the exterior of the building per the original law, and that its current location keeps it out of the public eye. Honor is a socialthat is, publicrecognition, the filing reads. Hidden from all visitors, the current location is no different than the basement the plaque was kept in for years.
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E-Commerce
An unprecedented, potentially record-breaking heat wave is expected to hit much of the American southwest, from California to Colorado, this weekand experts are concerned about how temperatures will affect the regions already-low snowpacks. Temperatures in the Los Angeles area will be 15 to 25 degrees above seasonal norms on Thursday, March 12, and Friday, March 13, according to the National Weather Service (NWS), reaching into the 90s along the coast and potentially above 100 degrees in some areas. Given the unprecedented length and magnitude of this extreme heat wave, heat stress will be increasing each day, especially in areas that aren’t used to the heat, like the coastal areas, forecasters wrote. Scorching temperatures will stretch through the southwest Tucson, Arizona, could see its earliest 100-plus degree day next week; the March monthly record high for Tucson is 99 degrees, according to the NWS. Parts of Colorado are forecast to reach into the 90s, which would break state records. Some parts of the southwest could see triple-digit temperatures, when they have never before experienced that this early in the year, climate scientist Daniel Swain said on a recent livestream. The heat wave is expected to last for the foreseeable future, he added, with a 10- to 14-day stretch of extraordinarily anomalous weather. It is quite likely that many cities and probably many states will set new all-time high March temperature records, as well as new records for the month of March cumulatively overall, Swain said. All the way from Colorado to California, I think were going to hit records everywhere in between. Heat wave threatens already-low snowpacks The extreme March heat wave comes on the heels of the warmest winter on record for the majority of the American west and Southern Plains. Thats based on 131 years of climate data. It was also an exceptionally dry winter across the West, which has left the region, including the Sierra Nevada, with below-average snowpacks. Many Western communities, including in California, depend on snowpacks as crucial natural reservoirs. They store water through the winter and release it over the spring and summer. The heat waves, though, threaten to melt the already-sparse snow, which means the reservoirs may not have enough water for residents and farms later in the year. The current snowpack is under 50% of its average throughout much of the American West, Swain said. Every single basin, with no exceptions in the Western U.S. . . . is below average. No “miracle March” this year Meteorologists and climate experts use the term “miracle March to describe the way the month can restock reservoirs, even after a winter without much water or snow. Cold, wet March conditions can turn a dry winter into a not-so-dry winter, Swain said. But this year, Swain noted, that is not going to happen. The record-breaking heat wave brings long-term concerns. Along with reducing the amount of water in reservoirs, it could set up dry soil conditions for the summer, which increases the risk of wildfires. The fact that these temperatures are coming so early in the year is also a concern for climate experts. Were about to experience the hottest March temperatures weve ever seen across a lot of the Western U.S., Swain said. This is going to be a heat wave that people aren’t going to be able to ignore because of when its happening.
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