The National Basketball Association (NBA) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday 26 October 2026, becoming the third US league to strike an integrity pact on prediction markets with the regulator, after Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League. In the same announcement the NBA named Kalshi and Polymarket its “Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges”, with rights to league trademarks and official game data, according to the NBA’s release and CFTC press release 9314-26. No money figure was disclosed for any of the deals.
The two halves of the news do not weigh the same. The memorandum itself, published by the CFTC, describes itself as a statement of intent and says it creates no legally binding rights or obligations. The commercial agreements are where the league takes on concrete commitments: limits on which NBA markets may be listed, a ban on trading by league and team staff, and duties to share information on suspicious trades.
CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in the release that the NBA “joins the MLB and NHL in taking a responsible step toward protecting sports integrity”, and named “insider trading and fraud” as the abuses in view. He thanked NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, whose name appears with Selig’s on the signature page. Silver is not quoted.
The pact lands in the middle of a fight over who regulates these markets. The National Football League, which has not signed such a memorandum, is backing New Jersey at the Supreme Court in its bid to have sports event contracts treated as gambling that states police. Utah sued Kalshi on 20 October. And on the same Monday, Kalshi announced a separate licensing deal with S&P Dow Jones Indices for contracts on the S&P 500.
What the NBA CFTC prediction markets memorandum says, and what it does not
The memorandum runs to five pages. Its purpose, in the CFTC’s words, is to have the two parties share information through regular communication on integrity matters and on keeping prediction markets fair and transparent. The text is more cautious than the press release.
Its opening clause calls the document “a statement of intent to discuss, cooperate, and exchange information” on the integrity of professional basketball and the event-contract markets tied to it. The next clause says it does not create “any legally binding rights or obligations” and changes nothing in the CFTC’s power to enforce the Commodity Exchange Act. A third goes further: neither side is required to create, keep or hand over any information, and all sharing is “at the sole discretion of each Party”.
In practice the cooperation rests on informal consultations, meetings “as needed” and written requests sent to named contacts. The CFTC designates its General Counsel, Tyler Badgley; the NBA designates Dan Spillane, its executive vice president and assistant general counsel for league governance and policy. Each may name up to two staff members as additional points of contact.
The confidentiality clauses are the most detailed part. Information received is presumed confidential and stays the record of the party that sent it. The NBA may pass CFTC information to the league’s Board of Governors, but not to teams or members more broadly unless the CFTC agrees in writing. Both sides expect that agreement to be given when the information concerns an active integrity investigation run by the league. Either party can end the arrangement with 30 days’ written notice.
So the memorandum is a channel, not a rulebook. It gives the league a named person to call at the CFTC when a suspicious trade on a game shows up, and it gives the regulator the same at the league. It sets no limits on what exchanges may list.
Kalshi and Polymarket get NBA data and trademarks, DraftKings gets prediction markets
The limits come from the commercial side. According to the NBA, its agreements with Kalshi and Polymarket include “limitations on permissible markets”, an affirmative ban on league and team personnel trading NBA event contracts, and obligations to share information about investigations and suspicious trading. The league did not publish the list of permitted or banned markets.
As preferred exchanges, both platforms receive rights to use NBA intellectual property, marketing rights and promotional activations across US media. They also receive official NBA data from Sportradar, which the league calls its Official Data Distribution Partner, to run and settle authorised NBA markets. Official data matters for settlement: a contract on a player’s points total has to resolve against a number both sides accept.
DraftKings, already an NBA betting partner, saw its existing agreement widened to cover prediction markets and nationwide promotion. The league said it plans to expand relationships with its other official sports-betting partners, and with others in the industry, “in the coming weeks”. Every authorised prediction-market operator will carry integrity obligations specific to prediction markets and market restrictions aligned with the NBA’s latest sports-betting restrictions.
“Protecting the integrity of the game is our top priority,” said Scott Kaufman-Ross, the NBA’s head of media distribution and partnerships, adding that the league wants to “work constructively with regulators and operators”. For Kalshi, Adam Barrick, head of sports partnerships, called the deal “a significant milestone”. Ari Borod, Polymarket’s president of sports business development, said it would let customers “engage more deeply with the game of basketball on Polymarket.”
Neither exchange disclosed what it pays the league. The NBA did not say how long the agreements run or whether the market limits differ between Kalshi and Polymarket. Our profiles of Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated prediction market and its fight with the states and of Polymarket cover the two companies’ history.
Three leagues in seven months, with different partners
Baseball went first. On 19 March 2026, MLB and the CFTC signed their memorandum, and Polymarket said the league had made it its exclusive prediction-market partner, with exclusive access to MLB data and marks, The Block reported at the time. Polymarket said the two would restrict markets judged to carry integrity risk, such as bets on single pitches, manager decisions and umpire performance. The background was a scandal from the previous season, in which pitchers were accused of taking bribes from bettors to throw certain pitches.
The NHL followed on 21 May 2026, under CFTC release 9235-26. That memorandum set up confidential information sharing and regular talks between designated representatives. “This agreement is another step toward safeguarding the integrity of sports,” Selig said then.
The NBA chose two preferred exchanges instead of one exclusive partner, and it folded a sportsbook operator, DraftKings, into the same framework.
| League | CFTC memorandum | Named prediction-market partner(s) | Financial terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| MLB | 19 March 2026 | Polymarket (exclusive) | Not disclosed |
| NHL | 21 May 2026 (release 9235-26) | Not stated in the CFTC release | Not disclosed |
| NBA | 26 October 2026 (release 9314-26) | Kalshi and Polymarket (preferred); DraftKings deal extended | Not disclosed |
| NFL | None signed | None; backs New Jersey at the Supreme Court | Not applicable |
The NFL and the states say it is gambling
The NFL is fighting the premise. It has pressed the CFTC for stricter rules on game integrity, consumer safety and insider trading, The Block reported. On 8 October 2026 it filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court in Flaherty v. KalshiEX, docket 26-299, supporting New Jersey’s request that the Court hear its case against Kalshi, according to the Supreme Court docket. New Jersey lost before the Third Circuit, which ruled on 6 April 2026 that the state could not enforce its gambling law against the CFTC-regulated exchange, and filed its petition on 2 September.
According to Cointelegraph’s account of the filing, the league argues that prediction markets threaten game integrity, that many event contracts are highly open to manipulation by a single player or official, and that the CFTC lacks sensible safeguards. The brief also gives a scale: on the first Sunday of the 2026 season, about $1.8 billion of the $3.3 billion traded on prediction markets was tied to the NFL, more than half, according to the league. That is the NFL’s figure, not an audited one.
The league has company. The docket lists amicus briefs from Ohio, 38 other states and the District of Columbia, the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, the American Gaming Association, the Casino Association of New Jersey, 145 Indian tribes and tribal organisations, former senator Christopher Dodd and former CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler, among others. In their own brief, Ohio and the other states called the clash between the CFTC and state authorities a “national turf war”, according to Cointelegraph. Kalshi obtained an extension and must answer by 9 November 2026. The Court has not said whether it will take the case.
The contrast with Monday’s news is direct. Selig’s CFTC presents league memorandums as a way to police sports contracts under federal oversight. The NFL wants the question sent back to the states, where sports contracts would face each state’s gambling law.
The states are not waiting for the Court. Utah’s attorney general sued Kalshi in the state’s 3rd District Court on 20 October, alleging illegal gambling, public nuisance and civil conspiracy, a case we covered in our report on Utah’s suit against Kalshi and two Susquehanna firms. Kalshi’s answer is that it is a federally regulated exchange and that no single state should have a veto over it.
Insider trading is the risk both camps name
Both sides cite the same danger. The CFTC release names insider trading and fraud; the NFL brief names manipulation by players and officials. The Block, reporting on the NBA deal, recalled two cases from this year: an active-duty US Army soldier charged in April with betting on Polymarket using confidential information before the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and a former White House teleprompter operator who agreed to pay more than $172,000 to settle charges that he used advance access to President Trump’s speeches to profit on Kalshi. Kalshi and Polymarket told the outlet they now require employment verification for traders in sensitive markets.
The military side of that debate is in our piece on the Pentagon barring troops from betting with nonpublic information. The NBA ban on staff trading is the sports version of the same rule. It binds the people closest to the game, through contracts with the exchanges rather than through the CFTC memorandum.
Kalshi signs with S&P Dow Jones Indices the same day
Kalshi’s other announcement on Monday points away from sport. In a release issued at 9:13 AM New York time (13:13 UTC), S&P Dow Jones Indices and Kalshi said Kalshi will become a preferred prediction-market platform licensed to offer event contracts on S&P DJI indices, starting with the S&P 500. The forthcoming contracts will settle on official index values published by S&P DJI.
The deal runs both ways. S&P DJI becomes a preferred provider of indices built from Kalshi event-contract data, applying its methodology to prediction prices on economics, politics and sports. No index has been named. “S&P DJI is the gold standard for benchmarks,” said Tarek Mansour, Kalshi’s co-founder and chief executive. The release gives no financial terms and no launch date, and S&P DJI states it does not sponsor, sell or endorse Kalshi’s contracts on its indices.
There is no crypto product in the agreement. Its interest for crypto readers is the direction: Kalshi, which already lists short-term bitcoin contracts (see our report on the $2.7 billion weekly bitcoin bets on Kalshi and Polymarket), is putting a stock-index benchmark and a sports league on the same platform in one day.
How a sports event contract differs from a bet, in the CFTC’s view
An event contract pays a fixed amount, typically $1, if something happens, and nothing if it does not. Its price, between 0 and 1, reads as the market’s estimate of the probability. In the United States, Kalshi lists these contracts as an exchange registered with the CFTC, which treats them as derivatives under federal law. Traders deal with each other through the exchange, not against a bookmaker setting odds.
States answer that a contract paying out on the result of a basketball game is a sports bet whatever the wrapper, and that it escapes state licences, taxes and age limits. That is the question before the Supreme Court in the New Jersey case. The NBA has, for now, chosen to work inside the federal model while writing its own market limits into private contracts.
The rights in the NBA deal cover US media only. This is a US story: the agreements concern US users, and no European rule covers these contracts yet.
What to watch next
- Kalshi’s response to New Jersey at the Supreme Court, due on 9 November 2026; the Court then decides whether to hear the case.
- The NBA’s announcements on other betting partners and industry operators, promised for the coming weeks.
- Whether the NBA or the exchanges publish the list of restricted markets, which neither side has released.
- Whether the NFL, or college sports bodies, sign a memorandum with the CFTC despite the league’s position in court.
- The launch date of Kalshi’s S&P 500 contracts and the first index S&P DJI builds from Kalshi data.