NFL joins pushback against prediction markets as U.S. Supreme Court asked to act

It also pointed out that it has secured multiple partnerships with other professional sports leagues — including Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League — and that the NFL is standing apart. “All but the NFL have been willing to share data and collaborate to protect game integrity,” Diana said.

The legal authorities underpinning sports wagers on prediction markets has come to a crossroads as one federal court has backed Kalshi's argument that the CFTC should be its sole regulator and two others have sided with the states' position that sport betting belongs under the authority of their own gambling laws and regulators. The division in those rulings leaves an uncertain and hazardous legal terrain, the NFL suggested in its legal filing — known as an amicus brief, in which an involved party shares its opinion in a case.

While New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to take the case and make a definitive ruling, the CFTC continues to insist that the exchanges it regulates, including Kalshi and Polymarket, are under its exclusive authority that preempts state powers.

Besides the NFL, other voices have joined in opposition to the position of the CFTC and Kalshi, including a former senator who was one of the authors of the law from which the relevant regulations spring — Senator Chris Dodd of the Dodd-Frank Act. The former Democratic senator called himself "uniquely qualified" on this topic and noted that his bill "did not set out to authorize nationwide sports betting through derivatives markets or displace decades of state and tribal primacy over gaming regulation."