Supreme Court weighs immigration detention, prediction markets, and the Ten Commandments

The Supreme Court opened its new nine-month term on October 5, and the justices are already weighing which blockbuster cases to add to the docket. Three potential additions stand out, each touching a live nerve in American life.

The first concerns immigration detention. The Trump administration has asked the court to let it keep detaining people swept up in the immigration crackdown without giving them a chance to seek bond — even if they have lived in the United States for years. Immigration authorities have taken the position that longtime residents qualify as applicants for admission, a category subject to mandatory detention under federal law. Until now, that reading applied to people arriving at the border. Federal appeals courts have largely rejected the expanded interpretation. The administration wants the Supreme Court to bless it.

The second concerns prediction markets — platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, along with Crypto.com and Robinhood, which have pushed into the business of letting users put money on sports and real-world events. The operators say their event contracts are financial derivatives regulated exclusively by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A bipartisan coalition of states says the sports offerings are gambling and should face state betting laws. If the court ever rules they are gambling, the platforms would face a patchwork of bans, taxes, and licensing regimes.

The third is about religion in schools. Several Texas families, backed by the ACLU, are asking the court to strike down the state's 2025 law requiring public elementary and high schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. A federal appeals court upheld the law. The Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law in 1980, but it has since abandoned the legal framework behind that decision and taken a broader view of religious freedom. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama have passed similar requirements.

Three cases, one theme: who decides. Who decides whether a longtime resident gets a hearing, who decides what counts as gambling, who decides what hangs on a classroom wall. With its 6-3 conservative majority, this court has been steadily moving American law rightward for years. The announcements on which cases it takes could come as early as this week.