The NFL is asking prediction markets to delist easily manipulated contracts, and the CFTC respects the league’s input

The National Football League (NFL) has sent formal letters to prediction market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, urging them to stop offering contracts related to football games whose outcomes can be easily manipulated or determined in advance. This move was initiated after consultations with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said that when assessing which contracts are vulnerable to manipulation, he will respect the views of each sports league.

NFL’s Opposition List: Which Contracts Are Deemed to Carry Manipulation Risk

In the letter, Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president, said the league opposes contract types where people who can access information from within the organizations can learn about outcomes in advance, or where outcomes can even be directly influenced by individuals’ actions. According to ESPN, the relevant contracts cover the following categories:

Commentator Speech Contracts: Announcers stating specific words or phrases during a game

Player Signing Contracts: Decisions to transfer or sign specific players

Coach Firing Contracts: The timing and conditions under which a specific coach is dismissed

On-Field Injury Contracts: Players’ injury status and severity during the event

The common feature of the above contracts is the lack of the kind of randomness that final game scores provide. Their outcomes can be known in advance—and even proactively engineered—by players, coaching staff, or team management, forming the basic set of conditions for “insider trading” as defined in traditional financial markets.

CFTC’s Delegation of Review Authority: A Structural Shift in the Regulatory Landscape

(Source: X)

Selig’s remarks carry regulatory significance that goes beyond this case itself. He said, “Each league is fully capable of making these decisions,” meaning that professional sports organizations such as the NFL have effectively gained an informal veto influence over the listing of the relevant contracts.

Under Selig’s leadership, the CFTC is actively working to establish its “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets, seeking to unify the currently fragmented interstate regulatory landscape at the federal level. However, regulators in multiple U.S. states are still bringing lawsuits against Kalshi and Polymarket under the banner of “gambling platforms.” The tension between federal regulatory claims and interstate jurisdiction has not been resolved.

Legislative Developments and Industry Split: Two Paths of Confrontation vs. Cooperation

On the legislative front, U.S. lawmakers are proposing multiple bills to address regulatory gaps in prediction markets. One bill would create an anti-insider-trading mechanism for “highly unusual bets” that appear in contracts related to Iran. Another bill would seek to prohibit any trading by the U.S. president and members of Congress on prediction markets.

What’s worth noting is that there is a clear divergence in how various professional sports leagues approach prediction markets. The NFL has chosen a confrontational stance, directly demanding that the relevant contracts be taken down. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball (MLB) has chosen a cooperation route: it has signed an information-sharing agreement with Polymarket and a memorandum of understanding with the CFTC to uphold a “integrity” framework.

This split reflects two distinctly different regulatory logics for professional sports organizations as prediction markets rise: using administrative pressure to prevent unfavorable contracts from being listed, or building real-time monitoring capabilities for suspicious trades through agreement-based mechanisms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the NFL think injury and player signing contracts are easy to manipulate?

The results of events such as injury conditions, player transfers, and coach firings can be known in advance—even actively influenced—by parties who possess inside information, and they lack the randomness protection provided by the final game score. People with insider information can take positions in advance on these contracts to profit, which constitutes “insider trading” under the definition of traditional financial markets. This is the core argument behind the NFL’s demand that prediction market platforms stop offering the related contracts.

What does the CFTC’s statement following the leagues’ opinions mean for the prediction market industry?

The CFTC’s remarks effectively grant professional sports leagues an informal veto influence over specific prediction market contract listings. This regulatory stance may push more leagues to follow the NFL by making similar demands, forming an informal regulatory pre-screening mechanism led by professional sports organizations. This could have a systematic impact on the lineup of sports-related contract products offered by prediction markets.

What possible responses could Kalshi and Polymarket have to the NFL letter?

As of the time the report was published, neither platform had publicly responded. Given that MLB and Polymarket have already established an information-sharing cooperation relationship, prediction market platforms may face a choice: voluntarily take down the relevant contracts to comply with the leagues’ demands, or follow the MLB model—using cooperation through agreements to win the leagues’ trust rather than engaging in confrontation. The CFTC’s clear position makes regulatory pressure for the first option more direct.