The NBA picks Kalshi and Polymarket as official prediction markets: what the deal includes, what it’s worth and why the CFTC signed on

The NBA spent the last year asking Washington for tighter rules on prediction markets. On Monday, Oct. 26, it stopped waiting and signed its own. The league named Kalshi and Polymarket its Preferred Prediction Market Exchanges, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and expanded its long-running deal with DraftKings to cover the sportsbook’s prediction products as well.

Neither the league nor the two companies disclosed financial terms. Industry estimates put the combined annual value of the new deals at $100 million to $200 million once rights fees, committed advertising, data fees and revenue sharing are added up. That would make prediction markets one of the league’s biggest new sponsor categories in years, arriving in the second week of the second season under the league’s new national TV deals.

What Kalshi and Polymarket get

As preferred exchanges, both companies can use NBA, team and event logos in their apps and marketing, and they get promotional rights across media channels in the United States. They will also receive official league data from Sportradar, the NBA’s official data distribution partner, to run and settle NBA markets. That last point matters for anyone trading: contracts on NBA games will now resolve off the same stats feed the league already sells to its sportsbook partners through its exclusive betting-data deal with Sportradar.

“Preferred” does not mean exclusive. Two companies share the title, and the framework still allows other prediction operators to advertise during NBA games and sponsor individual teams, as long as they sign on as authorized operators with the same integrity rules. DraftKings is the first in that tier, and the league said it plans to expand deals with its other official betting partners and others in the industry in the coming weeks.

It's official: Polymarket is now a Preferred Prediction Market Exchange of the NBA 🏀

Official NBA data, exclusive activations, and a whole new era of basketball starts now. pic.twitter.com/3op179YKgL

— Polymarket (@Polymarket) October 26, 2026

What the league gets in return

The NBA framed the package as an integrity deal first. The agreements limit which NBA markets the exchanges can list, ban league and team personnel from trading NBA event contracts, and require the platforms to share information on suspicious trading and cooperate with investigations. The market limits will track the league’s sports betting rules, which before this season banned bets on the opening tip and single-player under parlays.

“Protecting the integrity of the game is our top priority,” said Scott Kaufman-Ross, the NBA’s head of media distribution and partnerships. “As this category develops, we believe it is important to work constructively with regulators and operators to help ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. These partnerships represent an important step in establishing a framework that creates new opportunities to engage our fans.”

The timing is pointed. The deals arrived almost exactly a year after federal prosecutors charged Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups in separate gambling cases in October 2025, the biggest betting scandal the league has faced. Since then, the NBA has tightened its own rules and pushed regulators for more visibility into who is trading on its games. The CFTC agreement creates a channel for that. It does not give the league everything it asked for, though: the NBA had sought to raise the minimum age for prediction trading from 18 to 21, and that request was not granted.

Why a federal regulator is involved

Prediction markets sell event contracts, which let users buy a position on an outcome, such as which team wins a game. Kalshi, Polymarket and the CFTC argue those contracts are swaps regulated at the federal level. More than a dozen states disagree and say they are sports betting by another name, which would put them under state gaming law. Courts have issued conflicting rulings, and the question is widely expected to reach the Supreme Court.

CFTC chairman Michael S. Selig welcomed the deal, saying the NBA “joins the MLB and NHL in taking a responsible step toward protecting sports integrity and market participants from abuses in prediction markets like insider trading and fraud.” The NHL signed with both Kalshi and Polymarket in October 2025, and Major League Baseball went with Polymarket in March. That leaves the NFL as the major holdout. Earlier this month the football league filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that states, not the CFTC, should regulate sports event contracts. Adam Silver has taken the opposite view, saying the NBA deals with roughly 40 different jurisdictions and that “to have a consistent policy nationally, I think would be in our best interest.”

The money angle for teams

The biggest commercial change may come at the team level. Fourteen NBA teams play in states that have not legalized traditional online sports betting, including the California and Texas clubs, so they have been largely shut out of sportsbook sponsorships that other teams have sold for years. Prediction markets are available in most of those states under federal rules, which opens a new category of local sponsor for those franchises while the legal fight continues. The agreements also include terms for what happens if courts restrict or ban sports event contracts.

Players were already in the market before the league. LeBron James’ $15 million-a-year Polymarket deal is the largest individual deal, Giannis Antetokounmpo has promoted Kalshi and holds a stake in the company, and Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart’s podcast has its own Polymarket sponsorship. Players remain banned from trading on NBA contracts under the new rules, so their role stays limited to marketing.

What to watch next

Three things will show how big this becomes. The first is which other operators sign as authorized partners in the coming weeks, and how quickly team-level deals follow in non-betting states. The second is how visible the brands become on NBA broadcasts and in arenas this season. The third, and the one that could change everything, is the Supreme Court: if the justices side with the states, the NBA’s new partners could face fifty different rulebooks, which is exactly what Silver says the league wanted to avoid.