Sports Leagues Split on Prediction Markets: NFL Fights in Court While MLB, NHL, and MLS Sign Deals
The NFL's October 8 Supreme Court brief against Kalshi highlighted a growing divide among US sports leagues over prediction markets. The NFL is a staunch holdout, now actively opposing the platforms in court. By contrast, MLB named Polymarket its exclusive prediction market partner in March in a deal reportedly worth $150-300 million over three years; the NHL licenses to both Kalshi and Polymarket; and MLS signed an exclusive Polymarket deal in January. The NBA is reportedly close to agreements. The leagues are taking opposite strategic bets on whether prediction markets are a commercial opportunity or a regulatory threat.
The NFL's amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to classify prediction market sports contracts as gambling, filed October 8, drew a sharp line through the US sports industry. The NFL is now the most prominent league actively opposing the prediction market platforms, arguing to the Court that contracts on its games are wagers subject to state regulation rather than federal financial instruments. But the NFL's position is not shared across the sports world. Most other major North American leagues have moved in the opposite direction, signing commercial partnerships that treat prediction markets as a distribution and data-licensing opportunity rather than a legal threat. The result is a striking split: the same product that the NFL is fighting in court is a paying partner of Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer.
Major League Baseball went furthest. In March 2026, MLB named Polymarket its exclusive prediction market partner in a multiyear agreement reported to be worth between $150 million and $300 million over three years. The deal gives Polymarket official data rights and includes a comprehensive integrity framework, and MLB separately signed an information-sharing agreement with the CFTC on betting integrity. The MLB-Polymarket arrangement is the most valuable prediction market league partnership to date and represents a full commercial embrace of the model the NFL is opposing. The exclusivity has already been tested: five MLB teams separately partnered with Kalshi, creating tension between the league-level Polymarket exclusivity and individual clubs' own commercial interests in working with the market-share leader. The NHL embraced prediction markets earliest, signing licensing agreements with both Kalshi and Polymarket in October 2025, making it one of the first major North American leagues to formally work with the platforms. MLS followed MLB's model with its own exclusive Polymarket deal in January 2026.
The divergence reflects different assessments of risk and opportunity. The leagues that have partnered — MLB, NHL, MLS — are treating prediction markets the way they treated legal sports betting after the 2018 PASPA decision: as an inevitable and growing category where the league is better off capturing data-licensing revenue and shaping integrity frameworks from the inside than fighting a losing battle against consumer demand. The NFL's calculation is different. As the league with by far the largest prediction market volume — football accounted for $1.8 billion in trading on the first NFL Sunday of the season, more than half of all platform volume that day — the NFL has the most exposure to the integrity risks it cited to the Court: manipulation, and bets tied to injuries, officiating, and insider information. The NFL also has the most leverage to extract favorable terms if it eventually partners, and the least need to sign early. By opposing the platforms in court now, the NFL preserves optionality: if the Supreme Court rules that these are gambling products subject to state regulation, the NFL's integrity concerns are addressed through the state licensing framework; if the platforms prevail, the NFL can still negotiate a partnership from a position of strength.
The league split also complicates the platforms' legal and commercial narrative. Kalshi and Polymarket argue their products are legitimate financial instruments, not gambling — a position undercut when the NFL, the most authoritative voice on American football, tells the Supreme Court the opposite. But the platforms can point to the countervailing fact that MLB, the NHL, and MLS have all signed commercial deals that implicitly accept the products' legitimacy and build integrity frameworks around them. If prediction markets were straightforwardly illegal gambling, these leagues would be exposing themselves to significant risk by partnering. The reality that major leagues are split — some litigating against the platforms, others taking their money — captures the unresolved status of the entire sector. The NBA, reportedly close to its own agreements, will be the next data point: if the NBA partners, the NFL becomes an increasingly isolated holdout; if the NBA also holds back, the industry's two largest potential partners will both be on the sidelines, and the commercial case for prediction market sports contracts will look weaker than the volume figures suggest.
Operators mentioned in this article
Recent updates
Kalshi's Parlays Drive Back-to-Back $5B Days — and Hand Critics Their Strongest Argument
Kalshi traded a record $5.33 billion on November 7 and $5.36 billion on November 8, with multi-leg parlay-style 'combos' making up roughly 75% of both days' volume. Its 30-day volume topped $100 billion. But the parlay dominance cuts against the platform's legal defense: parlays are a quintessential sportsbook product, and the American Gaming Association has told the Second Circuit that parlays make up about two-thirds of Kalshi's volume and should be treated as sports bets. The implied house edge on 10-plus-leg combos is around 25%, undercutting the argument that these are neutral financial instruments rather than gambling.
Cruz Bill Would Require State or Tribal Approval for Sports Contracts — a Bipartisan Legislative Threat Emerges
Senator Ted Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, is preparing a bill that would bar federally regulated prediction markets from offering gambling-tied event contracts, including sports, unless a state or tribal government authorizes them. It would not ban the contracts nationwide but would require platforms to obtain approval jurisdiction by jurisdiction, resembling state-by-state sportsbook regulation. The proposal arrives as Democrats take control of both chambers after the midterms, creating a potential bipartisan reckoning: a Republican committee chair and a newly skeptical Democratic majority both eyeing restrictions on a sector that had relied on federal protection.
CFTC Tells Platforms to Stop Geofencing States — Directly Colliding With State Court Orders
The CFTC issued an interpretation on November 5 of its 'impartial access' core principle, telling regulated exchanges including Kalshi and Polymarket to drop state-by-state geographic blocks within 30 days or explain why they cannot. The demand collides head-on with existing state court orders that require the platforms to geofence: Washington ordered Kalshi to geofence in August, and Michigan ordered it to use licensed geolocation to block the state in September, with a $500,000 daily fine for violations. Chairman Michael Selig framed the interpretation as a uniformity requirement. The platforms are now caught between a federal demand to unblock states and state court orders to block them.