Gambling legislation in focus, betting on traffic lights is now a thing

The week most certainly had many interesting events worth commenting on, including several legislative moves in the United States and beyond, as well as a novelty gambling format

Perhaps most importantly, the United States is now experiencing a new push to bring regulated gambling formats to several of the holdout states.

Namely, Hawaii is mulling two bills, specifically HB2570 and HB2198, which have already passed their second reading in the House of Representatives.

The bills have been met with a mix of opinions, but this time, support seems to be noticeable, giving them a fighting chance.

Collectively, the bills seek to address important and pressing matters, including the legal status of sports betting, as well as whether prediction markets should be classified as "gambling."

In the same stride, South Carolina's Senate Bill 444 seeks to legalize sports wagering, establish a regulatory framework for the activity, and distribute taxes collected from betting.

The "South Carolina Sports Wagering Act" hopes to establish a clear tax base, several eligible licensees, and sort out the minutiae around licensing and application fees.

Business and finance

The professional trading terminal for prediction markets, Fireplace, announced it hit a major milestone with a new pre-seed round.

Earlier this week, the company announced it raised $1.5m to bring institutional trading infrastructure to one of the fastest-growing asset classes in history.

The company is exploring specific niches in the prediction market space, aiming to secure a competitive edge.

In similar news, Novig, a peer-to-peer trading platform, has completed a new funding round. The company closed a $75m Series B round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from existing investors such as Forerunner, Perceptive Ventures, and NFX.

155.io an innovative studio in the iGaming space focused on building live casino games based on CCTV camera has debuted its Rush Hour game.

The title features footage from live CCTV cameras at traffic lights, and asks players to simply guess how many cars would go through an intersection before the lights turn red again.

The game has already been introduced to Stake, Shuffle, and Roobet, and is available for direct integrations as well as through Hub88. Earlier this week, streamer Xposed flipped a $20,000 bet on the game into a $363,971 payout.

Laws and regulations

BetMGM is in a bit of hot water with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission after the regulator established that the operator has ended up sending thousands of emails to underage and self-excluded individuals.

BetMGM has attributed the mistake to a single employee who had not followed the company’s internal guidelines. The MGC would now have to decide what course of action is appropriate, possibly in an additional meeting.

Polymarket is facing pressure in yet another regulated market in Europe, after the Kansspelautoriteit, the Dutch Gambling Authority, has fined the prediction market platform, classifying it as "illegal gambling." The platform now faces a weekly penalty of €420,000 up to €840,000.

Responsible gambling

As announced by the media outlet, Patch, a group of nearly a dozen teenagers, all members of Southington's STEPS Youth Council, created a new video highlighting the potential negative impact of sports betting.

Sports wagering was selected as a primary topic of this initiative, considering that the group analyzed the activity's growing popularity among Southington teenagers, cautioning against the unintended consequences of engaging with sports gambling.

Sweden may need to do more to strengthen its responsible gambling and consumer protection measures, a new critical report by the Swedish National Audit Office notes.

Existing guardrails have proven insufficient, the watchdog said, citing an increase in gambling-related problems among vulnerable demographics, such as young people and children.

Both the Public Health Agency and the National Board of Health and Welfare have been advised to come up with a new framework that coordinates efforts and knowledge in a bid to protect these groups.

The voice of the industry

In this week’s round of high-profile industry talks, Casino Guru News had the pleasure of catching up with many industry insiders.

Specifically, Philip Doftvik outlined QTech Games’ strategy for dominating emerging markets through localization, long-term studio partnerships, and value-added services beyond aggregation. He highlighted differentiation via packaged content, data-driven tools like QTech Labs, and the QT Play lobby.

The publication also spoke with Sona Tunyan, Sales Team Lead at 18Peaches, at the recently concluded ICE Barcelona 2026, discussing the company’s strategy in building tailored and culturally relevant products that have allowed it to go from an upstart into a mainstream iGaming content juggernaut.

Casino Guru caught up with AffPapa’s Nune Grigoryan during ICE Barcelona 2026, exploring the evolving relationship between operators, affiliate managers, and affiliates, and how a better balance between automation and having a healthy relationship can help build future-proof businesses.

Meanwhile, 18Peaches launched an exclusive series of interviews with high-profile industry figures.

The company had the opportunity to catch up with Eman Pulis, Founder of SiGMA, about global expansion, emerging markets, and the personal drivers that sit behind long-term industry building.

18Peaches also hosted Cedomir Tomic, Founder of Alea and Vegas Legends, for a discussion that turned inward. All of these conversations are well worth reading about and watching in their entirety.

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