The NBA is widely expected to have prediction-market deals in place by the time this season tips off, with sources telling Front Office Sports there are “deal terms on the table.”
The league has been weighing whether to get into prediction markets since before last season, and FOS reported in April that discussions with at least Kalshi and Polymarket had ramped up. They are not the only platforms under consideration, however. Others involved in talks include Novig, Fanatics, and Rothera, which is a joint venture between Robinhood and Susquehanna, sources tell FOS.
Multiple sources have used the phrase “deal terms on the table,” and one prediction-market industry source tells FOS “there’s almost certainly going to be deals going into the season.”
“The NBA has circulated a proposal to everybody,” says a prediction-market industry executive who expects announcements before the end of this month. “I would be shocked if they don’t try to announce something before the season. They’re not going to want this news to come out a week before the first game.”
What sources are telling FOS lines up with what Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour suggested to RotoWire earlier this week: “you should expect announcements very soon, at least from one of the two remaining major leagues.” The NBA and NFL are the two primary holdouts in U.S. pro sports, and FOS reported last month that the NFL will not have any prediction-market deals in place for the upcoming season.
Last week’s 9th Circuit ruling against Kalshi, which spurred New Jersey to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue of sports-event contracts, has not dampened deal discussions. One prediction-market industry source says talks continued over the weekend in the wake of Friday’s decision at the 9th Circuit.
“My Guess Is the Number Is Going to be Bigger Than MLB”
Unlike MLB, which made a major splash in March with the announcement that Polymarket would be its exclusive prediction-market partner, the NBA is expected to have multiple partners with different levels of rights. (Other platforms, including Kalshi and Novig, have since been anointed “MLB authorized prediction markets” under the league’s “integrity framework.”)
The NBA has two official sports betting partners in DraftKings and FanDuel, along with a number of “authorized gaming operators” like BetMGM, Caesars Sportsbook, and Fanatics Sportsbook.
“It’s fair to say the expectation is that there will be multiple partners,” one source says. “Not all will necessarily have the same set of rights.”
It remains possible there will be one primary platform that will be announced as the official partner, complete with in-game advertising and the ability for that prediction market to use team logos, names, and other league marks, as well as official league data, including real-time game statistics. If one company gets that title, sources expect they’ll pay a hefty fee that is greater than what Polymarket paid MLB in March; sources told FOS the MLB-Polymarket deal is worth $300 million over four years.
“My guess is the number is going to be bigger than MLB,” the prediction-market industry executive says. “Which is going to price a bunch of people out.”
“There Have Been Curveballs”
Sources say there have been times when the NBA seemed close to getting into business with prediction markets before stepping back. “There have been curveballs,” one prediction-market industry source says. “There have been things that upset the apple cart,” says another. One example, according to the prediction-market industry executive, is that the NBA was not thrilled when Kalshi recently self-certified event contracts tied to the G League (despite the self-certification, Kalshi hasn’t actually listed those markets).
Multiple sources say there was a chance the NBA was going to announce something during the playoffs or Finals, but ultimately the league didn’t feel comfortable moving forward at that time.
“If a platform had said, ‘We’ll do anything the NBA wants, pay anything the league wants,’ could a deal have gotten done for the playoffs? Sure,” says one source. “But there are a number of things that have to be in these agreements, and the fact is there was no meeting of minds in time.”
The league has also been engaged with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—the federal regulator that oversees prediction markets and has proposed rules to govern sports-event contracts. In July, the NBA acknowledged some positives in the proposal while noting it “did not incorporate many of the integrity-related protections and requirements” the league previously suggested. The proposal “falls well short” of requiring prediction-market platforms to “comply with the most basic sports integrity protections as a matter of course,” the NBA said in a comment letter to the regulator.
The league’s legal team has quarterbacked discussions with the CFTC, sources say. There may end up being a memorandum of understanding between the NBA and the CFTC tied to any agreements with platforms; MLB included an MOU with the regulator when its deal with Polymarket was announced, while the NHL did not initially have an MOU but later entered into one.
No Team-Level Deals Yet
In the wake of the league-level prediction-market deals involving the NHL and MLB, individual teams in those leagues have entered into separate agreements with platforms. Kalshi is partnered with the Blackhawks, while Polymarket has a deal with the Rangers (Kalshi has a partnership with Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp., which owns the arena where the Rangers and Knicks play). Novig broke the seal on team-level MLB deals through its arrangement with the Mets, followed by Polymarket with the Yankees.
Last month, Kalshi entered into agreements with five MLB teams: the Braves, Dodgers, Red Sox, Padres, and Giants.
Individual NBA franchises have reached out to prediction-market platforms about potential team-level deals, sources say. But the league would need to approve any deal, and would not do so until it feels there are proper “integrity protections” in place, one source tells FOS. Once the league feels sufficient protections are in place, it could become comfortable entering into league-level partnerships, and after that happens there could be team-level deals approved, the source says.
The NBA and the prediction-market platforms named in this story declined to comment for this story.
