News: Kalshi Launches Major League Baseball Moneyline Betting

Apr 16, 2025

Editor’s note: The podcast will return next week.

If there was any doubt that Kalshi was determined to become a full sportsbook operating in 50 states, doubt no longer.

The prediction market platform launched single-game markets for Major League Baseball on Wednesday. You can now bet/trade on who will win every game on MLB’s schedule today — 15 games in all.

Kalshi put out a push alert to some users on Wednesday afternoon.

Things are escalating quickly. The move comes just two days after the platform launched betting on NBA playoff games. The first two games attracted about a million dollars in trading volume at Kalshi.

Kalshi has not yet launched single-game markets for hockey games in the NHL, which would be the next natural market to launch.

The expansion of the sports betting product comes as at least six states have issued cease-and-desist letters to Kalshi and others for allegedly offering illegal sports betting within their borders.

Major League Baseball wrote to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in March, expressing some concern about the future of sports event trading. MLB wrote in that letter at the time:

As the resemblance between sports event contracts and traditional sports betting markets continues to grow, so too does the need to replicate the integrity and consumer protections that exist at the state level. Currently, those protections are lacking. …
MLB has supported legal sports betting at the state level based on robust regulation and relationships in which sports leagues are viewed as partners and integrity of competition is considered paramount. If the CFTC decides to permit sports event contracts, this same integrity framework should be applied.

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Gambling news roundup

Big parlays, fake injuries and Telegram tips: The betting scandal in college and pro sports (The Athletic, paywall): “Since last year, the FBI has been investigating what federal prosecutors say is a scheme to fix the play of professional athletes in order to win wagers on their performances. The investigations have so far led to charges for six people, and four of them have already pleaded guilty, including Mollah, McCormack and Porter, who pleaded to one count of wire fraud conspiracy. The others are believed to be in plea negotiations, based on legal filings made by the federal government. But the investigation has led to what may become one of the most far-reaching scandals to hit sports in decades. The Athletic spoke with more than a dozen people in different corners of the NBA, college sports and betting worlds, including people briefed on the investigation and people with expertise on the wide-ranging intersections between casinos and sports teams. Many of the people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation or because they feared retribution or professional consequences for speaking publicly.”
Florida Sweepstakes Prohibition Bill Moves Forward in Senate (Sports Betting Dime): “The Florida Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment, and General Government today voted to give Sen. Corey Simon‘s (R-3) bill, SB 1404, a favorable report. … His legislation seeks to increase penalties for illegal Florida sports betting and gambling, while also including a prohibition on sweepstakes gaming in the state.”
- While the sweepstakes industry has fended off some proposed ban — either by good fortune or some skill — it is certainly not out of the woods yet in several states.
Lawmakers Deny Ohio Sports Betting Tax Hike (Legal Sports Report): “Ohio lawmakers have passed an amended version of Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed budget, but not before removing a massive sports betting tax hike. DeWine proposed increasing the Ohio sports betting tax rate to 40% from 20%. It would have been the second doubling of the rate in two years after DeWine doubled it in 2023. Lawmakers scrubbed the increase before passing the amended budget last week, 60-39.”
On Drake’s Gambling Streams, Everybody Loses (Pitchfork): “Drake reportedly signed a $100 million/year endorsement deal with Stake, and he’s promoting the company more feverishly than his own music. His Instagram grid looks like he was hacked by a Bitcoin scammer who spammed fake testimonials. Watching their session the other night, where Drake prattled on about gambling calls as if they radiated a mythical force while Ross played the role of obsequious glazer, it felt like a rock bottom moment for the new era of streamer-musician collaborations. Drake has steadily moved along the streamer axis, from shouting out more positive role models like Kai Cenat to wasting hours gambling with xQc and Ross, who palled around with Andrew Tate and went full sycophant for Donald Trump.”
Caesars Entertainment and AGS Expand Partnership to Bring Fan-Favorite Slot Titles Online for the First Time (press release): “Caesars Entertainment, Inc today announced an expansion to its partnership with AGS making Caesars’ online casino platforms the exclusive first online home for the immensely popular Triple Coin Treasures® family of slot titles. This expansion includes a series of classic and new slot title launches across North America on Caesars Palace Online Casino, Caesars Sportsbook & Casino, and Horseshoe Online Casino.
The first exclusive launch will introduce Shamrock Fortunes® to Caesars’ online casino players, bringing this beloved title that has long been enjoyed at Caesars Rewards® destinations in North America online for the first time. Additional launches later in 2025 will include another beloved Triple Coin Treasures classic, a unique Caesars-branded version of a title, along with never-before-played titles from AGS that will debut simultaneously at Caesars destinations and on Caesars’ marquee online casino platforms.”
- While Caesars seems content with its current status in the pecking order for US sports betting, it’s clearly trying to grow the online casino business with new initiatives of late.
Tennessee Gambling Regulator Says Kalshi, Crypto.com 'In Violation' Of State Law (The Event Horizon): “The agency that regulates sports betting in Tennessee has told the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it believes sports event trading via prediction markets is illegal in the state. The Tennessee Sports Wagering Council did not say it sent a cease-and-desist letter but did urge the CFTC to ‘not permit the offering of sports events contracts.’”
- It’s interesting that Tennessee has taken this route rather than the more direct route that at least six other states have taken in sending C&Ds.
How A Casino Exemption Helped Doom Nevada’s Landmark Anti-Smoking Bill (Casino Reports): “A landmark bill that would have mostly banned selling cigarettes in Nevada to anyone born after Dec. 31, 2004 has failed. And a key component of that failure was language that exempted the state’s casinos from that ban. … The new law, however, wouldn’t apply to casinos. Orentlicher framed this as a decision to allow out-of-state tourists — who often come to Nevada for the casinos — to not have to abide by the state’s new cigarette age limits.”