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The US government sued Illinois on Thursday to stop what it described as the state’s unlawful efforts to regulate prediction markets.

The booming industry of online prediction markets – which allow users to bet on virtually anything from Oscar winners to the weather to ongoing military conflicts – has been facing greater scrutiny as companies continue to fight state-led efforts to regulate the fast-growing platforms – which many argue is “basically gambling but with another name”.

The platforms are less regulated that conventional betting sites because they classify their offerings as “event derivatives”, which means they fall under federal commodities law and are currently overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than under state gaming regulators.

This means they are available in all 50 states to users 18 and older. Licensed sportsbooks can only operate in states where sports betting has been legalized and unlike casinos or traditional sportsbooks, users in effect bet, or “trade”, against each other rather than against an established “house”, with platforms collecting transaction fees.

Under the Trump administration, the CTFC has argued it has exclusive regulatory control over the companies.

According to a complaint filed in Chicago federal court, Illinois’ attempt to shut down so-called designated contract markets regulated by the CFTC intruded on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate national swaps markets.

Illinois introduced legislation earlier this year that would put some of the strictest guardrails in the country around prediction markets, including an effective ban on sports-related trades inside the state, a clamp-down on advertising, mandating strict age restrictions of 21 years up, as well as sweeping consumer protections.

The lawsuit is the first by the CFTC to block state gaming regulators from policing operators of prediction markets. It cited cease-and-desist letters that the Illinois gaming board (IGB) sent to Kalshi, Polymarket and Crypto.com after the board found reason to believe they violated Illinois gambling laws through their involvement in unlicensed sports wagering.

“It is unlawful to knowingly establish, maintain or operate an internet site that permits a person to play a game of chance or skill for money or other thing of value, or that permits a person to make a wager upon the result of any sport, game, contest, political nomination, appointment or election, via the internet without an IGB-issued license,” the cease-and-desist letters detail.

The federal lawsuit names gaming board officials, Illinois governor JB Pritzker and Illinois attorney general Kwame Raoul as defendants. None of their offices immediately responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.

While the Biden administration tried to crack down on prediction markets, the Trump administration has taken a decidedly less tough stance on the industry, with which it has close ties. Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, is currently both an investor in and an unpaid adviser to Polymarket, as well as a paid adviser to Kalshi. Trump’s social media company, the Trump Media & Technology Group, recently announced it would start its own platform called Truth Predict.

Meanwhile, resistance from states has intensified, with at least 20 federal lawsuits filed nationwide to curb prediction markets, disputing whether the companies should be treated as federally regulated financial exchanges, as they maintain, or as gambling operations that should be regulated like state-licensed sportsbooks.

Off the back of state-led efforts, Congress is mulling federal measures. US senators recently introduced legislation that would ban federally regulated platforms from allowing wagers on sporting events and ban casino-style games such as virtual poker, slot machines and blackjack from being available on the platforms.

Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator who introduced the bill in March with Republican senator John Curtis, said in a statement that the CFTC is “green-lighting these markets and even promoting their growth”.

“Sports prediction contracts are sports bets – just with a different name,” Schiff said in a statement at the time. “It’s time for Congress to step in and eliminate this backdoor which violates state consumer protections, intrudes upon tribal sovereignty and offers no public revenue.”