Utah’s state constitution already bans gambling. A new bill would close a loophole by nuking prop bets and likely daily fantasy “pick ‘ems” that companies like DraftKings and FanDuel use to skate the ban.
⏰ Tick Tock
6 days - Start of the 2026 Utah Legislature (1/20/2026)
31 days - Signature deadline for ballot initiative seeking to repeal Prop. 4 (2/14/2026)
54 days - First day congressional candidates can file to run for the 2026 election. (3/9/2026)
62 days - Neighborhood caucus night. (3/17/2026)
87 days - Utah Forward Party nominating convention (4/11/2026)
101 days - Utah State Republican and Democratic State Party nominating conventions (4/25/2026)
160 days - Utah's 2026 primary election (6/23/2026)
293 days - 2026 midterm elections (11/3/2026)
1,028 days - 2028 presidential election (11/7/2028)
HB243 from Rep. Joseph Elison, R-Toquerville, adds prop bets to Utah’s legal definition of gambling. That means wagers on a single player’s touchdown, yardage totals, or even the coin toss become explicitly illegal.
Online sportsbooks like DraftKings or FanDuel are already illegal in Utah. But a legal gray area has been daily fantasy sports (DFS), where those same companies let Utahns build short‑term rosters or play “pick ’em” contests predicting whether players go over or under a stat line.
Elison’s bill would likely slam that door. Its definition of a proposition bet, “a gambling bet on an individual action, statistic, occurrence, or non-occurrence during an athletic event,” directly targets “pick ‘em” style contests. Classic DFS is a fuzzier fit because they’re not a single‑stat wager, but they’re probably already illegal under existing law. However, the Utah Attorney General’s office has never been asked to investigate the companies.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Murphy v. NCAA, sports betting has exploded as states raced to legalize it, mostly online.
Sports wagers jumped from $4.9 billion in 2017 to $121.1 billion in 2023, with 94% of those wagers placed online. By 2024, nearly $150 billion was spent on sports bets alone. About half of American men under the age of 50 say they have at least one online sportsbook account.
That increase in popularity comes with a bill. Internet searches for gambling addiction increased by 23% nationally since June 2024. Nearly 40% of online bettors have bet more than they felt comfortable losing, and about 10% sought help with problem gambling. One in five people with a gambling disorder attempt suicide.
Young people, especially college students, are getting hit hardest. Among bettors 18-34, 90% thought they could make money from sports betting in 2025, up from 82% the year before. One in 10 college students meet the criteria for pathological gambling versus 2-5% in the U.S. general population. Seventy-five percent gambled in the past year, often with financial aid dollars. Six percent reported losing more than $500 on sports betting in a single day.