The NBA has entered into a partnership agreement with prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi, the league announced Monday, according to reports from Mike Varkunow of The Athletic and ESPN’s David Purdum.
As part of the agreement, Polymarket and Kalshi will be able to use official NBA and team logos and will have access to official league data. In return, the NBA will gain control over the deals the companies offer on their platforms. Polymarket and Kalshi will also work with the league to help identify suspicious trading and try to prevent insider trading.
Although prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi are widely seen as an extension of sports betting, they do not operate like a standard sportsbook. As Varkunov explains, prediction markets “serve as an exchange for bets between two parties on the outcome of future events,” unlike bookmakers who set odds on the outcome of a game or event.
“This category works a little bit differently in terms of the types of markets they offer,” NBA Executive Vice President Scott Kaufman-Ross – said Varkunov. “It was very important for us to get that right of approval. So if there’s an unwanted market that they want to offer, we have the right to say no to that.”
The NHL entered into partnership agreements with Polymarket and Kalshi through 2025, and MLB struck a deal with Polymarket in March. In discussing the NBA’s deal with the two companies, Kaufman-Ross told Purdum that the league was holding off on reaching a deal until the right “regulatory framework” was in place.
“We were just waiting for a moment where we felt like we had all the pieces we needed to be comfortable moving forward.” Kaufman-Ross said.
As part of Monday’s announcement, the NBA said it has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which is the federal agency that claims to regulate the prediction market industry. Whether the industry should fall under state or federal jurisdiction is the subject of legal dispute, with New York among the states suing prediction markets alleging they offer unlicensed sports betting.
Because prediction markets are currently regulated by the CFTC and not by individual states, they can be offered in all 50 states, which has resulted in the best sportsbooks entering the market. The NBA is expanding its agreement with DraftKings to include prediction markets and plans to do the same with FanDuel and Fanatics, among others, Kaufman-Ross told The Athletic.
While the NBA’s agreements with Polymarket and Kalshi are new, several NBA stars have previously signed sponsorship deals with these companies, including LeBron James with Polymarket and Janice Antecumba from Kalsha.
As Varkunov points out, these arrangements have received some criticism, given that the NBA has recently been at the center of several gambling-related scandals involving Jontay Porter, Malik Beasleyand Terry Rozieramong other things, while active players report facing an increase in social media abuse from sports betting enthusiasts.