NFL Confronts Prediction-Market Bets Embraced by Other Leagues
The National Football League is holding off on making any alliances with prediction market companies even as many other top leagues and events embrace the new form of sports betting.
In the days before the opening kickoff of the new season, America’s most watched sports league conspicuously left out prediction markets companies like Kalshi and Polymarket when it renewed sponsorship agreements with online betting giants DraftKings Inc. and FanDuel and added Fanatics Inc. Those partners will be able to use NFL logos in their marketing and run ads during TV broadcasts of games.
Traditional sports-betting operators have recently introduced their own prediction-market offerings, but the agreements with the NFL specifically prohibit DraftKings and the others from promoting those new products. A month before the deals were announced, the NFL wrote to the federal regulator that oversees prediction markets and said that this nascent area of sports betting needs stronger rules.
On Thursday the league sent prediction-market operators a list of potential bets they should refrain from offering. The list included outcomes easily manipulated by a single person, such as will a kicker miss a field goal, or knowable in advance, like whether a player will be traded. The NFL also asked them not to offer wagers on things that were “inherently objectionable,” such as fan safety and player misconduct.
“The NFL has made clear that sports prediction markets need a robust regulatory framework, with the same high standards for integrity and consumer protection that apply to legal sports betting,” a spokesman for the league said in a statement. “Given the tremendous uncertainty — from inadequate regulation to legal challenges — we are not ready to enter into commercial partnerships with prediction markets.”
Prediction markets began as a way to bet on elections and other real world events. Over the past two years, though, sports have come to account for the lions share of the trading on the platforms.
Since President Donald Trump took office, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has said that it considers the platforms derivatives exchanges under its jurisdiction and has allowed them to expand nationwide. But dozens of states have tried to shut the trading down and argued in court that the exchanges should answer to state gambling laws. Courts have been split and many in the industry are expecting the battle to go to the Supreme Court.
The legal battles have not stopped many of the biggest sporting events and leagues from striking partnerships with the biggest prediction market startups, Kalshi and Polymarket.
Kalshi promoted its brand at soccer’s World Cup this summer.
And just last month, the US Open and five Major League Baseball teams, including the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox, announced sponsorship deals with the company. The agreements include in-stadium signs and online advertising, and in baseball’s case, naming rights for the Gold Glove Bar in Dodgers Stadium. Rival Polymarket signed a similar deal with the New York Yankees that will allow for rotating home plate signage during televised games.
The National Hockey League already reached multiyear agreements with Kalshi and Polymarket, naming them both official prediction market partners.
The National Basketball Association has held out, but is engaged in ongoing conversations about sponsorships with prediction-market operators, according to a person familiar with the league’s strategy.
The NFL has raised concerns about prediction markets at several points over the last year. Most recently, the league asked the CFTC to ban prediction market bets on whether specific players would be injured, which it said could be vulnerable to manipulation. Kalshi said this week that it would stop offering these kinds of contracts at the request of the CFTC.
Jordan Bender, an analyst at Citizens, said that the NFL is foregoing what could be hundreds of millions of dollars in new sponsorship opportunities. Still, the league hasn’t ruled out the possibility that it will cut a deal in the future.
“Ultimately, what this comes down is the regulatory environment, if and when the NFL wants to get involved,” Bender said.
Like many other leagues, the NFL was critical of traditional sportsbooks both before and after they were legalized in the US. But as sports-betting became a more significant part of the American sports industry, the league eventually changed its posture and cut deals with the big gambling companies.
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Bloomberg News provided this article. For more articles like this please visit bloomberg.com.
