NBA signs Kalshi, Polymarket agreements
The NBA has designated Kalshi and Polymarket as its Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges, combining commercial rights with restrictions intended to protect basketball competitions. The agreements cover authorized NBA-related markets and require cooperation over suspicious trading and integrity investigations.
Announced October 26, the arrangements accompany a memorandum of understanding between the league and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That agreement establishes cooperation and information sharing concerning prediction markets involving the NBA.
Kalshi and Polymarket must observe limits on permissible markets and prohibitions on NBA and team personnel trading NBA event contracts. Their obligations also include sharing information relevant to investigations, rather than operating solely under a conventional sponsorship arrangement.
“Protecting the integrity of the game is our top priority,” said Scott Kaufman-Ross, NBA Head of Media Distribution & Partnerships.
The agreements combine commercial rights with trading safeguards
Both exchanges will receive rights to use NBA intellectual property and conduct marketing and promotional activities across U.S. media channels. They will also obtain official NBA data from Sportradar to operate and settle authorized basketball markets.
DraftKings’ existing relationship with the league has also been expanded to include prediction markets and nationwide promotion. The NBA said authorized prediction market operator agreements will carry enhanced integrity obligations and market restrictions aligned with its latest sports betting rules.
Those rules follow the league’s recently announced restrictions on selected player propositions and certain parlays. The earlier measures addressed specific markets considered vulnerable to manipulation, including selected first-event wagers and combinations of statistical unders involving the same player.
The commercial agreements arrive amid continuing disputes over prediction market regulation. In Ohio, the state regulator has separately targeted licensees supporting unlicensed sports event contracts, with October 30 set as the deadline for confirming compliance with its order.
