On Monday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it had co-signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the NBA. The data-sharing agreement is expected to further enhance cooperation and integrity as it relates to prediction market sports contracts linked to the outcomes of professional basketball games in the United States.
The CFTC has similar deals in place with the NHL and MLB, meaning that the National Football League (NFL) is now the lone “big four” professional sports league that has yet to agree to terms related to prediction market data sharing.
In an official statement published Monday by the CFTC, Chairman Mike Selig stated, “I’m pleased the CFTC and NBA signed an MOU which continues the Commission’s commitment to increasing data sharing between the agency and professional sports leagues.
The NBA joins the MLB and NHL in taking a responsible step toward protecting sports integrity and market participants from abuses in prediction markets like insider trading and fraud. I thank NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for putting the integrity of professional basketball and America’s financial markets first and for working with the CFTC on this MOU.”
An official press release published by the NBA on Monday sheds more light on the resulting changes that the Memorandum of Understanding brings to the forefront. With a formal agreement now in place, the league acknowledges “the designation of Kalshi and Polymarket as the league’s Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges.”
That specific language could point to a future in which the National Basketball Association teams up with one or both of those exchanges.
Although the NBA has yet to officially partner with one or more legal prediction markets in the United States, Philadelphia 76ers forward and future Hall of Famer LeBron James famously joined forces with Polymarket in September. James’ marketing deal with Polymarket allows him to promote non-basketball sports event contracts for the domestic, CFTC-regulated platform.
Back in February, then-Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo (who is now a starter for the Miami Heat) made national headlines when he became a shareholder of Kalshi. The NFL immediately reacted by banning its players from holding an ownership stake in prediction market platforms.
Under the CFTC, regulated prediction market exchanges including Kalshi, Polymarket, DraftKings, Novig, ProphetX, Rothera, and Underdog can offer approved prediction market sports contracts. Despite this, several states won legal battles that allowed them to compel exchanges to geo-restrict sports contracts.
For example, Kalshi’s sports contracts are currently unavailable in the states of Michigan, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Washington. If larger states, such as New York, receive favorable court rulings tied to state enforcement of sports contracts, Kalshi and other CFTC exchanges could be forced to further restrict prediction markets’ most popular contracts.
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