NBA Names Kalshi and Polymarket Preferred Exchanges and Signs CFTC Integrity MOU

Days after tightening its sportsbook menu, the NBA has signed up Kalshi and Polymarket as preferred exchanges and DraftKings as an authorised operator. The memorandum it signed with the federal regulator alongside them is a statement of intent, and says so.

• The NBA has named Kalshi and Polymarket its Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges and expanded its agreement with DraftKings to cover prediction markets and nationwide promotion, with no financial terms disclosed
• Kalshi and Polymarket receive NBA intellectual property, marketing rights and Sportradar data, and accept market limits, a personnel trading ban and information-sharing duties
• The league's memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) creates no legally binding obligations and leaves all information sharing at each party's discretion
• Authorised operator partnerships carry market restrictions aligned with the sportsbook limits the NBA set out this month, but the announcement does not list which markets the two exchanges must drop
• The deals land while federal NBA betting cases continue, with a change-of-plea hearing requested for Malik Beasley and Terry Rozier's trial set for February 2027

The NBA Splits Its Prediction Market Partners Into Two Tiers

The NBA announced on 26 October that it had designated Kalshi and Polymarket as the league's Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges. In a second tier, it has expanded its agreement with DraftKings, already a sportsbook partner, "to include prediction markets and nationwide promotion", as an Authorized Prediction Market Operator. More official sports betting partners "and others in the industry" are to follow "in the coming weeks", the league says.

Each preferred exchange receives NBA intellectual property, marketing rights and promotional activations "across media channels within the United States", and official data from Sportradar, the league's Official Data Distribution Partner, to operate and settle NBA markets. No financial value, duration or start date was disclosed. InGame reports that Kalshi has averaged more than $100 million a day in basketball volume since the 2026-27 season tipped off on 20 October, and Polymarket US more than $35 million.

The agreements with Kalshi and Polymarket "put in place significant integrity protections for NBA-related markets", the league says: restrictions on permissible markets, prohibitions on trading NBA event contracts by league and team personnel, and information-sharing obligations relating to investigations and suspicious trading. Every Authorized Prediction Market Operator partnership will include "market restrictions aligned with the NBA's latest sports betting restrictions". Kalshi's own post adds direct channels to report suspicious trading and cooperate on investigations, and cites its IC360 surveillance. "Protecting the integrity of the game is our top priority," said Scott Kaufman-Ross, the NBA's head of media distribution and partnerships.

The CFTC Memorandum Is a Framework for Talking, Not a Duty to Share

The CFTC's release of 26 October says the MOU is intended to protect the integrity of professional basketball in prediction markets through regular communication. The document, which carries signature blocks for CFTC Chairman Michael Selig and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, calls itself "a statement of intent to discuss, cooperate, and exchange information", to be pursued "primarily through ongoing, informal consultations". It does not "create any legally binding rights or obligations", requires neither party to share anything and leaves all sharing "at the sole discretion of each Party". It sets out no referral procedure and leaves the CFTC's enforcement powers untouched.

The NBA may pass CFTC information to its Board of Governors but not to teams without written consent, which both sides expect to give for an active NBA integrity investigation. The contacts are CFTC General Counsel Tyler Badgley and NBA executive vice president Dan Spillane, and either side can end it on 30 days' notice. Selig said the NBA "joins the MLB and NHL" in protecting market participants "from abuses in prediction markets like insider trading and fraud". The CFTC signed equivalent memorandums with Major League Baseball on 19 March and the NHL on 21 May. On 31 March CFTC Director of Enforcement David Miller named insider trading among five enforcement priorities, pledging to "aggressively detect, investigate, and, where appropriate, prosecute insider trading in the prediction markets", citing an NBA team employee with non-public knowledge of a player's injury as an example.

The Deal Follows a Month of Integrity Pressure

The NBA's 16 October memo to sportsbook partners, reported by ESPN, barred same-player under parlays, opening-tip markets, unders on players expected to play fewer than 12 minutes and individual "first-of" markets; those rules did not then reach prediction markets. According to TSN, citing ESPN, the judge in Malik Beasley's case asked a Brooklyn magistrate on 23 October to schedule a hearing for him to change his not-guilty plea, though his lawyer, Steve Haney, said no deal had been signed. Beasley is accused of trying to fix his performance in at least four Milwaukee Bucks games in 2024.

The states are moving the other way. Ohio ordered 10 prediction markets to stop sports contracts after the Sixth Circuit ruled it could enforce its gambling law against Kalshi. InGame reports that the NFL, now the only one of the four major leagues without a prediction market partner, has told the Supreme Court in an amicus brief that states, not the CFTC, should regulate sports event contracts.

The Commercial Contracts, Not the MOU, Carry the Obligations

The CFTC memorandum is the headline, but its own text strips it of obligation. On the league's account, the duties sit in the private contracts, where Kalshi and Polymarket accepted information-sharing and a personnel trading ban in exchange for intellectual property, data and marketing. That mirrors the sportsbook side, where the NBA enforces market limits through commercial agreements rather than statute, except that the exchanges already carry federal surveillance duties. The test will be whether suspicious trading reported under those contracts reaches the CFTC, and the MOU leaves that to discretion.

The Restricted Market Question Is Answered for DraftKings and Left Open for the Exchanges

The announcement ties restrictions "aligned with" the October sportsbook rules expressly to authorised operator partnerships. For Kalshi and Polymarket it says only "restrictions on permissible markets", without listing them. Whether same-player under parlays and opening-tip contracts disappear from the two largest exchanges is the most practical integrity question the deal raises, and the published documents do not settle it.

A League Endorsement Helps the Exchanges' Federal Case Without Deciding It

Kalshi's post quotes Silver complaining of "roughly 40 different jurisdictions regulating us right now". A third major league choosing a federal channel strengthens the exchanges' argument that sports event contracts belong with a single national regulator. It does not change the law: pre-emption is being decided in the courts, and the Sixth Circuit has sided with Ohio and Tennessee. The NBA has, in effect, sided with the CFTC model while the NFL backs the states.

The NBA has bought itself data, contractual leverage and a seat at the CFTC's table. What it has not yet shown is that the markets it banned at the sportsbooks will vanish from the exchanges it now promotes.