NFL Asks CFTC to Restrict Certain Prediction Market Contracts

The NFL has sent a formal letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), urging the agency to prohibit specific categories of sports-related prediction market contracts. The league is raising alarms about integrity and the potential for manipulation on rapidly growing platforms with little regulatory oversight. 

The league's senior vice president for government affairs and public policy, Brendon Plack, submitted the letter to CFTC Chairman Michael Selig as the commission works through an active rulemaking process governing prediction market apps. The NFL focused specifically on contracts it believes a single actor could too easily influence.  

The league is also pushing for the removal of contracts tied to information known before a game begins and to any contract tied to player injuries. 

Beyond specific contract restrictions, the NFL called for raising the minimum age to participate in sports-related prediction market contracts from 18 to 21, consistent with the standards of most of the best sports betting sites.

The league also recommended that platforms establish formal data-sharing arrangements with state gaming regulators and create a distinct certification pathway for player performance contracts rather than allowing platforms to continue self-certifying them. Margin trading on sports contracts was flagged for elimination as well. 

The NFL has not partnered with any prediction market platform and remains one of the few major professional leagues to hold that position, alongside the NBA and NCAA. 

MLB takes the opposite approach

While the NFL pushes for tighter restrictions, MLB has moved firmly in the other direction. In March, MLB finalized a multi-year exclusive partnership with Polymarket, making the platform the only prediction market operator permitted to use official team logos and marks.  

The deal was valued at somewhere between $150 million and $300 million, with the financial structure still subject to some uncertainty depending on extension options. 

The agreement positions Polymarket as MLB's exclusive prediction market partner, giving it direct access to league data through Sportradar, MLB's global data distribution and integrity partner. Sportradar confirmed it sees a meaningful revenue opportunity in the prediction markets space and noted that its data can still be supplied to other platforms outside the exclusive arrangement. 

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred had signaled the league's openness to a formal partnership, arguing that structured agreements were the most effective way to maintain integrity standards. The move follows similar deals Polymarket struck with the NHL, MLS, and UFC.  

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has noted that formal partnerships allow leagues to flag and remove contracts they find inappropriate, a level of oversight that independent platform operations would not otherwise provide. 

The NFL's posture and MLB's full embrace of the industry illustrate just how divided professional sports remain on prediction markets. The CFTC's rulemaking process will likely shape how much runway leagues and platforms have going forward.