On Friday, CFTC-regulated prediction market Kalshi submitted a filing to offer event contracts on sports games. Its previous contracts were limited to title events, like conference and season championships. The new single-game contracts are set to launch on Saturday, Feb. 8.
Kalshi’s filing prohibits the following parties from trading its newest sports contracts:
- Current and former players, coaches, and staff of the league, association, or organization(s) governing
- Paid employees of the league and league participants
- Ultimate beneficial owners of teams and the league
- Household members and immediate family of all above.
These newest sports contracts come about two weeks after Kalshi’s initital sports contracts, which were limited to conference championships and the Super Bowl.
Growing interest in sports event contracts
Sports contracts have been available since 2022 through a sports betting company called Sportstrade. Sporttrade is a sports trading company operating in five states under state-by-state sports betting laws.
In December 2024, Crypto.com certified sports contracts on its federally regulated finance exchange. Kalshi followed with its own title event contracts on Jan. 23, after Crypto.com kept its sports contracts listed and shortly after the new CFTC administration took power.
Kalshi’s listing of additional sports contracts signals confidence that the new CFTC will decline to interpret the sports contracts as “gaming.” While the new CFTC chairman is clear that gaming regulation belongs to states, she has also ordered Robinhood to pause trading of Kalshi’s Super Bowl winner contracts.
