NBA Names Kalshi and Polymarket Preferred Exchanges, Signs CFTC Pact

The National Basketball Association has named Kalshi and Polymarket its preferred prediction market exchanges and signed an information-sharing agreement with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to Monday's announcement. The dual move gives two of the largest event-contract platforms official standing with a major US sports league while embedding integrity controls aimed at insider trading.

Under the data agreements, Kalshi and Polymarket will receive official NBA data supplied by Sportradar, the league's designated data distribution partner, for settling authorized markets. Both platforms also gain rights to use NBA intellectual property and to conduct promotional activities in the United States. For exchanges that have operated largely outside formal sports-league relationships, the arrangement supplies something concrete: a settlement-grade data feed and a license to market under the league's brand.

The partnerships carry integrity safeguards. They prohibit NBA and team personnel from trading NBA event contracts, and they require cooperation on suspicious trading investigations. That provision matters for practitioners on both sides — exchange compliance teams gain a defined escalation channel, and league integrity units gain contractual access to trading records when they flag anomalies.

CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig framed the regulator's role in a separate announcement, saying the agreement with the NBA would strengthen information sharing to address insider trading and fraud in prediction markets. The NBA now joins Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League in establishing similar arrangements with the CFTC. Three of the four major US leagues have therefore formalized lines of communication with the derivatives regulator, leaving the National Football League as the notable exception.

The NBA did not stop at the two designated exchanges. The league expanded its existing agreement with DraftKings to cover prediction markets and said it expects to announce similar arrangements with other industry operators in the coming weeks. The pipeline of league partnerships, in other words, is not closed — operators still negotiating for official status face a market-structure question about how many preferred slots carry commercial value once several platforms hold equivalent data and IP rights.

What does this change for operators and state regulators?

The commercial answer is straightforward: Kalshi and Polymarket now hold a data and IP position that unaffiliated competitors lack, which affects market quality, settlement reliability and marketing reach in basketball-related contracts. The regulatory answer is more contested, because the NBA's announcement lands in the middle of an unresolved legal fight over whether federal commodities rules supersede state gambling laws governing sports prediction markets.

The dispute has produced conflicting court decisions. In September, the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Kalshi in a case involving Ohio and Tennessee, following a similar decision by the 9th Circuit. An earlier ruling by the 3rd Circuit, however, allowed Kalshi to continue operating in New Jersey while its appeal proceeds. The circuit split sets up a potential Supreme Court confrontation.

State enforcement has not paused while the leagues negotiate. On Oct. 20, Utah Attorney General Derek Brown sued Kalshi, alleging that the platform had facilitated illegal betting in the state since 2024. Utah officials are seeking to recover an estimated $30 million to $60 million in profits allegedly earned by Kalshi and other defendants — a figure that, spread across the alleged period, represents a material balance-sheet exposure rather than a nominal penalty.

The US Supreme Court has been asked to review the New Jersey dispute, and 39 states plus Washington, DC, support the petition. The NFL, which has declined commercial partnerships with prediction market exchanges, also backed the petition, arguing that certain sports event contracts threaten game integrity because they are susceptible to manipulation. The justices have not yet agreed to hear the case.

For league personnel, compliance officers and exchange risk teams, the practical takeaway is that the NBA has chosen integration over resistance: official data, contractual integrity cooperation and a direct line to the CFTC. For state regulators, the league-federal alignment strengthens the argument that prediction markets function as a federally supervised channel.

The decisive variable remains judicial. A Supreme Court decision on whether to hear the New Jersey petition — supported by 39 states, the District of Columbia and the NFL — will determine whether the NBA's preferred-exchange framework operates under a single federal rule or a patchwork of state regimes.