NFL takes on Trump in push to give states power over Kalshi, Polymarket
· Yahoo Sports
The National Football League asked the Supreme Court to take up a case that could give states the power to regulate sports bets on prediction markets, a rejection of the Trump administration’s stance that they should be governed by the federal government.
In an amicus brief sent to the high court on Thursday, the NFL railed against “a more laissez-faire approach” the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and prediction markets have adopted toward sports betting that the league argues “threatens game integrity” and undermines its longtime efforts to regulate the practice in conjunction with states.
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“The NFL’s very top priority has been preserving the integrity of its games and protecting its fans as legal sports betting spread state by state,” the league wrote in its brief.
The NFL's brief came in support of New Jersey, which asked the Supreme Court last month to decide whether state or federal officials had the power to regulate prediction markets. But President Donald Trump believes the job of regulating them should fall to the federal government alone.
“It is critically important that the CFTC’s exclusive authority over Prediction Markets is maintained, and that they will thrive,” he wrote in May on Truth Social.
On Wednesday, 39 states and Washington, D.C. — including deep-blue California and ruby-red Missouri — signed onto another amicus brief arguing that “states have held the traditional power over sports gambling since this country’s beginning” and that prediction markets “cannot strip the States of their core sovereign power through relabeling and window-dressing.”
In its brief, the NFL highlighted examples of bets that are typically prohibited by the league and state regulations but often appear on prediction markets, including bets that can be “manipulated by a single person.” Prediction markets also do not restrict usage to adults over the age of 21, the league wrote. And the CFTC’s staff of 543 employees pales in comparison to the total number of workers employed by each state to monitor gambling.
“Since day 1, the CFTC has engaged with the NFL regarding the agency’s rulemaking agenda and policy priorities," CFTC Public Affairs Director Brooke Nethercott said in a statement. "It’s unfortunate the NFL declined to sign an MOU with the CFTC which would’ve provided the league the ability to better discuss, cooperate, and exchange information with us to promote the integrity and resilience of prediction markets.”
Kalshi in its own statement rejected claims that its gambling guidelines put the integrity of the game at risk.
“Contrary to the NFL’s statements, the CFTC is actively policing sports-related markets, which are now listed on nearly every US commodities exchange,” Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said in a statement. “The CFTC’s ongoing rulemaking addresses many of the NFL’s supposed concerns. And those rules sit atop the same comprehensive system of federal enforcement that protects trillions of dollars of transactions in US markets.”