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Through July, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) reported that visitor volume has rebounded only 0.5%. 2026 followed a difficult 2025, where visitation crashed 7.5%.
Far fewer travelers are arriving in the casino town by air this year. Harry Reid International Airport reported 30.2 million passengers through July—a 6.9% drop from the same period in 2025—with international traffic down nearly 9%.
The LVCVA and Harry Reid International Airport have not yet released their August reports. Truist Securities analyst Barry Jonas isn’t expecting a major rally.
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The American Gaming Association (AGA) believes many federally regulated prediction markets have transformed into illegal gambling and sports betting outfits, siphoning revenue from the legal, taxed gaming industry. Prediction markets, the trade group argues, threaten jobs and tax revenue, as do other forms of illegal gambling like skill games, sweepstakes casinos, and offshore sportsbooks.
Illegal gambling operators are thriving at the expense of American consumers, siphoning billions in tax revenue from state governments, and undercutting the efforts of the legal market,” said AGA President and CEO Bill Miller. “It’s time for a national crackdown on the pervasive illegal market that is draining state coffers and putting people at risk.”
The AGA estimates that Americans wager $673.6 billion with illegal and unregulated gambling operators a year, with unregulated online slots and table games accounting for the lion’s share of the unlawful bets at $466.2 billion.
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Some exchange operators already filed plans to introduce KPI-linked event contracts. Those derivatives would be tied to metrics such as corporate earnings or, in more nuanced cases, Apple iPhone shipments or Tesla deliveries — just two examples — in a given quarter.
While sports event contracts remain the headline-grabbers for prediction market operators, there’s evidence that other categories are experiencing growth. As Bernstein points out, cryptocurrency event contracts account for at least 20% of the turnover on the two largest prediction markets.
In another encouraging non-sports sign, one of those operators notched just $2 million in commodities volume last year, but that figure surpassed $410 million in August alone and is approaching $600 million on a year-to-date basis.
