STOCKS | Josh Gottheimer Introduces Bill Requiring Age Checks for Online Betting and Prediction Markets

U.S. Representative Josh Gottheimer and eight cosponsors have introduced a bipartisan bill that would require online sports betting platforms and prediction markets to verify users’ ages before logging in, placing bets, or trading. According to Odaily, the measure is titled the Facial Recognition to Protect Children Act and applies to online gambling and prediction markets. Gottheimer’s office said the technology would read facial structure and patterns to estimate a user’s age without storing identity or personal biometric information. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology classifies age estimation as facial analysis rather than identity recognition. NIST has evaluated six age-estimation algorithms and found an average error of 3.1 years on the same visa photo database. Performance varied depending on image quality, age, gender, and country of birth. The full text and bill number have not been released, and the enforcement agency, penalties, technical standards, and appeals process have not been specified.