Report: NBA in Talks With CFTC About Prediction Markets
Posted on: April 29, 2026, 10:10h.
Last updated on: April 30, 2026, 07:29h.
- Media reports say NBA in talks about CFTC about prediction markets
- NBA had in the past expressed concerns about prediction market integrity around its product
- MLB signed deal with Polymarket in March
Following in the footsteps of the MLB and NHL, the NBA is actively engaging with federal regulators on a memorandum of understanding to protect game integrity amid the rise of prediction markets, media reports have claimed.
NBA and Prediction Markets
According to reporting by Bookies.com, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he has been speaking with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) about a memorandum of understanding.
“I’m encouraged by what we’re hearing from the CFTC, as the way they’re looking at it. I think they want to get it right.” Silver confirmed “They want to hear directly from the leagues about their concerns. So we’ve engaged directly with the CFTC right now”.
The memorandum would put the NBA on a path towards a potential partnership with prediction market operators like Kalshi, Polymarket, and Fanatics Markets.
This was seemingly confirmed by the NBA kingpin, who confirmed there was a dialogue in place, but admitted there was more to do to get over the line.
“In terms of Kalshi-Polymarket specific, we haven’t done any deals yet, but we’ve maintained an open line of communication with them,” he said.
“We’re watching closely the uptick in the amount of sports activity that’s happening on those platforms. We aren’t necessarily adverse to entering into licensing deals with them. But again, the league’s number one role is to ensure the integrity of the competition. And that’s what we’re most focused on right now.”
The NBA then would go into a basket of professional sports leagues that currently includes the NHL, which signed multi-year partnerships with Kalshi and Polymarket last October, and MLB, which named Polymarket its official prediction market exchange in March.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred signed a memorandum of understanding with CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, one year after MLB wrote a letter to the CFTC calling for strong integrity protections in the rapidly evolving prediction market space.
MLB-Polymarket Deal
A key component of the partnership between MLB and Polymarket is the establishment of a comprehensive integrity framework, which includes working together to restrict markets that present an integrity risk to MLB.
That includes individual pitches, manager decisions, and umpire performance, among others.
It was only last May, in a letter to CFTC Acting Chairman Caroline Pham, that Alexandra Roth, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, League Governance & Policy for the NBA also expressed concern about the growth of prediction markets.
This rapid expansion of sports prediction markets has occurred in the absence of the kind of robust, sports-specific regulatory framework that would aim to protect the integrity of the games being played,” she wrote then. “Without oversight and regulation tailored to the specific circumstances of sports wagering, the integrity risks posed by sports prediction markets are more significant and more difficult to manage than those presented by legal, regulated sports gambling.
Sports-Betting Scandals
“If the CFTC does ultimately decide to permit the continued offering of sports event contracts, we encourage it to close this gap and to adopt a comprehensive regulatory and oversight framework analogous to those governing state sports betting markets, and to impose meaningful limitations on the continued expansion, via self-certification, of these markets into ever more exotic
and narrow event propositions.”
UFC and MLS also have partnerships with prediction market companies.
The NBA of course has been rife with betting scandals over the several years, particularly those involving Jontay Porter and a federal probe currently going on into Terry Rozier.
Yesterday, in a Brooklyn court, former NBA player Damon Jones pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud tied to two separate cases from October 2025, connected to illegal sports betting and a rigged poker game scheme.
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