NBA names Kalshi and Polymarket as preferred prediction market partners

The agreements with Kalshi and Polymarket limit which markets can be offered and prohibit league and team personnel from trading NBA event contracts, according to the NBA. They also require information sharing on investigations and suspicious trading.

“Protecting the integrity of the game is our top priority,” Scott Kaufman-Ross, the NBA’s head of media distribution and partnerships, said in a statement. “As this category develops, we believe it is important to work constructively with regulators and operators to help ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place.”

Each platform will be able to tap the league's intellectual property, and it will gain marketing rights and promotional activations across media channels in the U.S. Each will also get official NBA data from Sportradar, the league's Official Data Distribution Partner, which they can use to run and resolve approved NBA-related markets.

The CFTC announced the signing of the MOU in a separate release. Under the agreement, the two organizations will share information by communicating on a regular basis about integrity and about maintaining fair and transparent prediction markets.

"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," CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in a statement.

The NBA also expanded its agreement with DraftKings to cover prediction markets and nationwide promotion. The league plans to expand its relationships with other official sports betting partners and others in the industry in the coming weeks. Those agreements will carry enhanced integrity obligations and market restrictions aligned with the NBA's latest sports betting restrictions, the league said.

The league did not disclose financial terms of the Kalshi and Polymarket deals, which run for multiple years, according to The Associated Press. Kaufman-Ross told the AP that the NBA can sign off on which kinds of markets are listed for its games.

The announcement comes as states and the federal government dispute who regulates event contracts. States argue the contracts amount to sports betting that they should oversee, according to CNBC. Platforms and the CFTC maintain that the contracts are swaps and so fall under federal oversight, while courts have reached conflicting rulings, CNBC said.

Earlier this month, the NFL argued in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court that states, not the CFTC, ought to oversee event contracts tied to sports, according to CNBC. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told CNBC in early October that a consistent national policy would serve the league's interest. "We have roughly 40 different jurisdictions regulating us right now," Silver said.