NFL: 'Sports-Related Events Contracts Should Not Be Approved By The CFTC'
The pro football league submitted testimony to the House Agriculture Committee about prediction markets ahead of a hearing about the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The NFL made its strongest statement yet about the expansion of prediction markets into event contracts for football.
The league told Congress this week that it believes that sports event contracts should not be allowed without more oversight.
Jeff Miller — the NFL’s executive vice president for communications, public affairs & policy, player health & safety — submitted testimony to the House Committee on Agriculture on Thursday. That came as part of a hearing about reauthorizing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is generally just a procedural matter.
But the NFL used the opportunity to make its concerns about prediction markets known. Here’s the key bit from Miller’s written testimony:
“Until such time that professional sports leagues and fans can be certain that effective game integrity and consumer protection measures can be enforced, sports-related events contracts should not be approved by the CFTC, and Congress should consider clarifying the definition of ‘gaming’ contracts in the prohibited categories of the Commodity Exchange Act.”
The new comments from the NFL came soon after Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league would not be getting involved with prediction markets right now. The comments from Miller are stronger than the language Goodell used last week.
The NHL became the first major North American sports league to partner with prediction markets when it did deals with Kalshi and Polymarket in October.
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Here’s some of the testimony:
As Commissioner Goodell recently discussed at a public forum, the league has no plans to participate in prediction markets due to several outstanding legal, regulatory, and commercial concerns on how these markets operate and the possible impact on the integrity of sporting events.
We are particularly troubled that several sports-related futures contracts have been launched nationwide, including in jurisdictions where sports betting has not been legalized. These contracts fall outside the purview of state regulatory authorities and the safeguards they impose upon the industry, including information-sharing requirements, integrity monitoring, prohibitions on easily manipulated markets, official league data requirements, know-your-customer protocols, and problem gambling resources. For example, just this past weekend, one prediction market exchange was accepting bets on whether or not “concussion protocol,” “late hit,” or “roughing the passer” would be mentioned during the broadcast. Congress and the CFTC should prohibit these and other types of objectionable bets among the many consumer and integrity protective measures needed before sports-related events contracts are legalized.
The amounts potentially wagered through unregulated gaming contracts markets could significantly exceed those in regulated sports betting markets, creating substantially greater risks to contest integrity. Without the comprehensive regulatory framework that now exists in 39 states and the District of Columbia, these products could be susceptible to manipulation or price distortion. In each of these state-regulated markets, regulators and state legislators closely monitor betting activity and, with input from professional sports leagues, can determine which bets and wager levels are acceptable. Those guardrails do not exist in prediction markets.
We would welcome the opportunity to work with the House Agriculture Committee and the CFTC to understand whether the game integrity safeguards that exist in regulated sports betting markets can be effectively implemented on self-regulated exchanges under the regulatory purview of the CFTC. Until such time that professional sports leagues and fans can be certain that effective game integrity and consumer protection measures can be enforced, sports-related events contracts should not be approved by the CFTC, and Congress should consider clarifying the definition of “gaming” contracts in the prohibited categories of the Commodity Exchange Act.
And you can see the whole thing here:
It’s a significant escalation from the concerns the NFL said it had when writing to the CFTC in August of 2024, before sports event contracts started proliferating via prediction markets. This is some of what Jonathan Nabavi, NFL vice president, public policy and government affairs, wrote at the time:
The NFL is concerned that if sports-related gaming contracts were to be permitted, such contracts may not be used in a legitimate effort to mitigate commercial risk. These contracts would mimic sports betting but seemingly without the robust regulatory features that accompany regulated and legalized sports betting and which help to mitigate threats to the integrity of our contests. They would fall outside the purview of sports betting regulatory authorities and the safeguards they impose upon the industry. We agree with the Commission that participants in sports-related gaming contracts markets would primarily be speculators rather than participants with legitimate commercial hedging interests, and we share the concern that these contracts, if not properly regulated, could be susceptible to manipulation or price distortion.
The American Gaming Association also submitted testimony to the committee on Thursday. From its submission, signed by CEO and President Bill Miller:
In the CFTC’s own staff advisory to prediction market platforms, they acknowledged that the Commission has not approved any of these sports event contracts, instead relying on the self-certifications by registered entities. The CFTC’s refusal to prevent platforms from using a backdoor to offer nationwide sports betting should concern every member of this Committee and has serious implications for your states’ ability to effectively regulate gaming within its borders.
The CFTC reauthorization process offers a timely opportunity to reaffirm Congressional intent to prevent gambling through the commodities markets. As part of this effort, we respectfully urge the Committee to use its oversight powers to press the CFTC to stop sports betting contracts, and for the Committee to take appropriate legislative action if the agency continues to ignore its own regulations that preclude contracts involving gaming and other excluded commodities.
Full thing here:
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Also this week, NCAA president Charlie Baker addressed prediction markets in an interview with Yahoo Sports:
“Prediction markets are not regulated at all. And so, ya know, California, which currently doesn’t permit sports betting, the prediction markets could have an absolute ball taking that space over.
You see DraftKings and FanDuel dropping out of the American Gaming Association… I’d be willing to conclude that a big part of their reasoning is they’re going to get into the prediction market space. They can’t afford to let those folks dominate all that green space they can’t currently access.
It just says this whole thing is going to get worse unless somebody does something about it. And solving it at the federal level is going to be really challenging because it’s still new and not fully formed. So, I mean, you’re basically talking about no rules, no oversight, no nothing. And that just feels catastrophic to me. Not just for us, but for everybody.”
