The Nationwide Soccer League outlined to the Commodities and Futures Buying and selling Fee its views on how sports-related prediction markets must be regulated because the business continues to expertise large progress, in keeping with a letter reviewed by CNBC.
Selection embrace banning sure occasion contracts and elevating the age requirement for participation.
Senior vp for presidency affairs and public coverage for the NFL Brendon Plack penned the letter on Friday to CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, the place regulators are at the moment in a rulemaking course of relating to the markets. Plack stated the slew of suggestions are to protect the ethics of the league.
“These strategies are aimed toward (i) defending the integrity of the sporting occasions to which the prediction contracts relate, and (ii) defending members in these prediction markets from fraudulent or manipulative habits,” he wrote.
The NFL needs numerous contracts they deem to be simply manipulable by a singular individual banned, like on if a kicker will miss a discipline aim or a quarterback’s first cross can be incomplete. Contracts on issues which might be “knowable upfront” like the primary play of the sport or buying and selling on “inherently objectionable” occasions like accidents also needs to be restricted, the NFL stated.
Plack additionally wrote that the league needs “mentions” contracts for broadcasters, the place members put cash on completely different phrases they assume a person will say on tv, prohibited too.
The NFL additionally known as for elevating the age requirement for members in sports-related prediction markets to 21 years outdated. That might align with typical age necessities for on-line sports activities betting, however prediction markets at the moment permit customers beginning at 18 years outdated to commerce on their platforms.
Plack persistently refers to state-level playing rules as a mannequin to observe when growing guardrails for sports-related prediction market contracts. He even recommends the Nationwide Futures Affiliation enter agreements with state gaming regulatory authorities to share information and enhance enforcement mechanisms to catch people who should not be allowed to commerce.
Michael Selig, President Donald Trump’s nominee to guide the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee speaks throughout a Senate Agriculture, Vitamin, and Forestry Committee listening to on Capitol Hill on Nov. 19, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Photos
Nonetheless, Selig views these markets, together with the sports-related ones, as completely different from playing. He reiterated to Axios this week that sportsbooks and these contracts are “two separate issues.”
The CFTC has taken a number of states to court docket over their authorized interventions with prediction market platforms. States argue their energy to manage sports activities betting means they’ve jurisdiction over these platforms, whereas the fee argues these contracts are swaps and thus fall below its regulatory energy.
Different suggestions from the NFL embrace a request for the CFTC to create a singular certification course of for contracts which might be associated to a person participant’s efficiency or prone to manipulation. Presently, most occasion contracts are accredited by a self-certification course of by the prediction market platforms.
It isn’t simply public sector regulators fighting the arrival of those platforms. Sportsbook corporations DraftKings and FanDuel guardian Flutter have seen their shares endure previously 12 months as prediction markets’ sports activities enterprise has grown.
Plack additionally writes the league believes prediction market platforms ought to enter agreements with sport governing our bodies to determine and implement a listing of prohibited members in sports activities occasion contracts, together with league workers to reduce possibilities of insider buying and selling.
The league additionally believes platforms must be required to ban margin buying and selling, a dangerous apply the place borrowed cash is traded, to guard shoppers. “The permittance of occasion contracts that aren’t totally collateralized, as some have steered, significantly associated to sports activities markets, might amplify addictive habits and loss threat,” Plack wrote.
— CNBC’s Contessa Brewer, Jessica Golden and Ananya Chetia contributed reporting