The NFL announced three sports-betting partners on Thursday, but you won’t see any prediction-market deals when the regular season kicks off in two weeks.
For months behind the scenes, the league has been holding talks with companies including Kalshi and Polymarket, as well as the CFTC. But it remains unready to get into business with prediction-market platforms, and there will be no deals in place when the regular season begins, sources tell Front Office Sports.
“I don’t see a scenario where the NFL is ready by the start of the season,” one prediction-market industry source tells FOS. “I would be incredibly shocked if anything at all happens this season.”
“Nothing has changed in regard to prediction-market partnerships,” says a source familiar with the NFL’s thinking.
The league has been lobbying the CFTC to “adopt regulations that mirror game integrity and consumer protections in legalized sports betting,” the source says. In July, the NFL said the CFTC’s prediction-market rule proposal falls “significantly short” in addressing risks around integrity, consumer protection, and market manipulation.
The NFL is “alarmed” about markets “related to injuries” that are being offered by some platforms, the source familiar with the league’s thinking tells FOS. Kalshi is not offering markets explicitly tied to injuries, but it does have markets on when a given player will compete (for example, users can put money on whether Patrick Mahomes, who suffered a torn ACL in December, will play in week one). Polymarket recently filed with the CFTC to list markets on player participation, but has since pulled them.
Such markets are “easily manipulable and offensive” to players, which is “why they are included in the league’s prohibited bet categories,” the source familiar with the NFL’s thinking says.
The NFL on Thursday announced DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics as its official sports-betting partners, with all three having signed multi-year deals. DraftKings and FanDuel have been NFL partners in sports betting since 2021, while the Fanatics relationship is new.
Although all three also have prediction-market platforms, the data and intellectual-property rights from the sports-betting deals do not carry over to their prediction markets. “That’s not a space that we’re considering right now commercially,” NFL EVP and chief revenue officer Renie Anderson told ESPN.
NFL EVP Jeff Miller told FOS in February ahead of Super Bowl LX in San Francisco that while the league was still skeptical about prediction markets—it didn’t allow any prediction-market commercials to air during the Super Bowl—it wouldn’t rule out the possibility of eventually doing business with the industry if regulatory issues it has concerns about are resolved.
Although it appears any formal relationship between the league and prediction-market platforms remains far off, individual teams have interest in commercial partnerships with platforms, sources tell FOS.
“NFL teams have certainly inquired,” says a source who works for a well-known prediction-market company. “Everybody wants a partner in this space. People see the dollar signs and want to do something.”
But currently, no team-level deals would be allowed, a source familiar with the matter tells FOS.
The NFL was the last of the big-four North American pro sports leagues to embrace sports betting, and sources say the same pattern is likely with prediction markets. The NHL last October partnered with both Kalshi and Polymarket; subsequently Kalshi signed an agreement with the Blackhawks and Polymarket signed a deal with the Rangers. MLB in March reached a deal with Polymarket, and now nearly one-quarter of teams in the league have individual deals of their own (the Mets with Novig, Polymarket with the Yankees, and Kalshi with the Giants, Braves, Padres, Red Sox, and Dodgers). The NBA has yet to come around, although it has been in talks with platforms for months and sources expect it will reach deals before the NFL.
