Fact Pack! Gaming Control Board Dings Prediction Market Operator
By Hightower Las Vegas and RCG Economics on August 25, 2026
The Nevada Gaming Control Board (GCB) has petitioned for penalties of $120,000 per day against prediction market operator Kalshi on the basis that it failed to comply with directives to stop offering sports, election, and entertainment betting in the state by an Aug. 12 deadline, according to a report by The Nevada Independent.
In July, Kalshi agreed to implement a “geofencing solution provided by a third-party commercial provider” to prevent anyone within Nevada boundaries from entering its site.
In a statement issued over the weekend, Kalshi General Counsel Rick Heaslip called the control board’s lawsuit “a vindictive waste of taxpayer dollars at the bidding of casinos.”
National Debt Hits $40T Mark
U.S. national debt has crossed the $40 trillion threshold, roughly doubling since FY 2016.
In response to rising long-term yields — with 10-year Treasuries hovering around 4.7 percent — the Treasury Department announced an expansion of its bond buyback program to support liquidity and manage long-duration borrowing costs.
Service Sector Spike
Service-sector activity in the U.S. reached the highest level since the end of 2024, offsetting a slowdown in manufacturing.
As of 8/21/26
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Selected Services Revenue report showed second-quarter 2026 revenue reached $6.42 trillion, an increase of 3.1 percent over Q1.
Computer Memory Cost Bounce
Once-expensive computers and tech gadgets got cheaper and cheaper as the years after 1960 rolled on, writes Elliot Bentley, a data visualization developer at Datawrapper.
As of 2023
Now, cell phones, laptops, and games consoles are seeing a dramatic price spike over where they stood in January 2025:
Source: Datawrapper Current (“Now”) prices as of 8/20/26
Why?
AI. Big tech companies building big data centers are buying out global supplies of RAM — the short-term “random access memory” that performs live tasks and processes and used in all modern gadgets.
Related: Some of Nvidia’s biggest customers have been told the prices of servers containing its artificial intelligence chips are going up more than 15 percent, as memory-chip costs soar.
Reno Hawk Fire by the Numbers
As of late Monday morning, 42,000 residents (around 14,000 homes) had been ordered to evacuate, with an additional 45,000 residents placed under “Get Set” evacuation warnings.
Screen shot as of 10:52 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 24
The fire began Saturday and quickly grew to more than 24 square miles as it spread across the Peavine Peak area of the Humboldt–Toiyabe National Forest, where rugged foothills are ringed by homes and businesses near the California state line.
Gov. Lombardo declared a state of emergency in Washoe County on Saturday and mobilized the Nevada National Guard to support firefighting with two helicopters and 60 troops. Also responding were 800 local and regional fire personnel.
Nearly 10,000 customers were without power in Washoe County on Sunday, an improvement from 60,000 on Saturday.
Wildfire in the U.S.
Source: USA Facts As of 2025
Since 1983, federal fire agencies have tracked 3.0 million wildfires across 230 million combined acres—more than twice the area of California.
Graph source: USA Facts as of 2025
Data source: National Interagency Fire Center
Over the last decade—from 2016 to 2025—an annual average of 63,400 wildfires burned an average of 7.1 million acres of vegetation in the U.S.
Takeaway:
Wildfires have not been as frequent in number in recent years—but they are burning more acres of vegetation. The 5.1-million acres burned in 2025 was down 43 percent from burnt acreage n 2024 — but was nearly double the acreage burned in 2023.
Graph source: USA Facts As of 2025
Data source: National Interagency Fire Center
In 2025, wildfires damaged a reported 18,385 structures, including 12,773 homes, 5,116 minor structures, and 496 commercial structures. Nearly 90 percent of the destroyed buildings, about 16,324, were in Southern California.
Suppression costs are up:
Graph source: USA Facts as of 2024
Data source: National Interagency Fire Center
Inflation-adjusted data as of 2024
On average, 125 wildfire disasters were declared in the U.S. per year from 2021 to 2025.
In 2025, wildfires affected all states.
- Alaska had the most acres burned at 1,006,158, followed by
- California with 505,994,
- and Arizona with 326,813.
States with the most acres of wildfire per 10,000 acres, however, were two we don’t typically associate with wildfire activity:
As of 2025
Forecasts suggest the U.S. will see above-average totals for both fires and acreage burnt in 2026.
Source: National Interagency Fire Center As of Aug. 1, 2026
No Surprise: Nevada Has Most Transplants
Nevada (with 17 percent) and Washington, D.C. (with 25 percent) are the two locales with the fewest number of native-born residents. Louisiana (74 percent) and Michigan (72 percent) are the states with the most home-grown population.
Most data per Census Bureau estimates as of 2024
Sunshine Premium
Data geeks will be pleased there is a downloadable, zoomable version (on Twitter/X) of the following dot graph with metro placement based on cross checking its median home prices with the “Camelot Index,” which ranks how “nice” the weather is across four categories (heat, cold, precipitation and sunshine), weighting days with temperatures below 32°F and days above 90°F most heavily.
Data based on 1991-2020 norms and averages
The “Pricey Paradise” area of the graph shows that numerous California metros fit the nice-and-more-expensive bill; Honolulu gets an honorable mention; and Las Vegas, Reno, Scottsdale, and Phoenix are in the Mountain West mix, along with locales in Florida, Idaho, Colorado, and Utah:
Zoom-in screenshot of prior dot graph Data based on 1991-2020 norms and averages
Family Farm Financials
There were 336 bankruptcy filings under Chapter 12—a special category for family farms and fisheries—in the U.S. in the 12-month period ending June 30, up from 282 in the previous year, according to federal courts data.
- Crop prices have remained low due to ample global supplies; American Farm Bureau Federation economists project 2027 will be the sixth consecutive year in which U.S. farmers see negative returns once row crop losses are factored in, according to a report in The Daily Upside.
- Corn losses are predicted to rise 27 percent from -$131 per acre this year to -$167 per acre in 2027.
- Soybean losses are forecast to rise 72 percent from -$80 per acre to -$138 per acre.
Persistent, elevated prices of diesel fuel and the rising cost of fertilizer—as we reported in a prior issue, one-third of the world’s supply of the latter commodity is transited through the Strait of Hormuz—also meant farmers struggled to buy all they needed in the spring planting months.
- Seven of the eight major U.S. fertilizers tracked by agricultural market intelligence provider AgroLatam are more expensive than they were a year ago, per the Daily Upside write-up.
Politico Pro reported earlier in August that Senate Republicans are moving to hold a vote in early September on a $95 billion Iran war package that includes $12 billion in relief for farmers.
Spotlight on American Farms
Small family farms in the U.S. dominate the agricultural landscape by volume, but production value is heavily concentrated among large-scale operations. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
- Small Family Farms (Gross Cash Farm Income < $350,000) — Account for 86 percent of all farms but represent only 17 percent of total production value while utilizing 40 percent of the land.
- Midsize Family Farms ($350,000 – $999,000) — Account for 6 percent of all farms, holding 18 percent of the land and providing 18 percent of the production value.
- Large-Scale Family Farms (GCFI ≥ $1 million) — Account for just 5 percent of all farms but generate 50 percent of the production value.
- Nonfamily Farms: Account for the remaining 3 percent of all farms and make up 14 percent of agricultural production value.
Marijuana Use is Up
Cannabis use is again at a record high, and cigarette smoking is at a record low, according to new polling from Gallup. Seventeen percent of American adults say they smoke marijuana, tied with the high mark in 2023, and a record 15 percent also say they use edibles. Cigarette use has declined to just 11 percent from a high of 54 percent in 1954.
In 2013, the year Gallup started polling the pot-smoking question, just 7 percent of respondents said they smoked pot.
Economic data:
- Economic output is estimated at between $123.6 billion and $149 billion in 2026, including direct sales, indirect spending by industry employees, real estate, and ancillary businesses, according to a FlowHub analysis.
- Legal sales are projected to reach between $30.5 billion and $47 billion according to analysts at Whitney Economics.
- The industry supports 425,000+ stable, full-time jobs across cultivation, manufacturing, testing, and retail, according to federal jobs data.
Box Office Boom?
Last week’s website-crashing rush for Dune 3 tickets underlined the findings of recent demographic surveys and ticket sales data.
One in five Gen Z adults surveyed by YouGov said they’d seen a movie in theaters in the last week, and about one in four Gen Z (18-29) and millennial (30-44) adults said they’d gone in the last month.
Vegas Chamber Event Alert
On the Horizon
MarketWatch calendar:
