NFL presses CFTC to ban some football event contracts and raise trading age
The National Football League sent a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on May 15, 2026, pressing the agency to add regulatory guardrails on football prediction markets. The league called for banning certain sports-related event contracts, raising the minimum age for trading them, prohibiting margin trading, and barring league employees from participating in NFL-tied event contracts. The communication came as the CFTC weighs oversight of event contracts linked to professional sports outcomes and as prediction market operator Kalshi partnered with MSG and Polymarket opened U.S. iOS access to its app. No specific regulatory language or timeline was disclosed by the league or the CFTC. The NFL's stance adds a major professional sports voice to the intensifying debate over where regulated prediction markets end and gambling begins.
Kalshi and Polymarket must now navigate four major sports leagues formally opposing their NFL-linked contracts while CFTC Chair Selig simultaneously negotiates data-sharing commitments and a pending rulemaking that could reclassify or restrict those same products.
Joins the NCAA, MLB, and NHL in formally opposing CFTC-regulated event contracts on its games, making the NFL the fourth major sports league to enter the regulatory fight alongside tribes, state attorneys general, and the CFTC itself.