U.S. CFTC in talks with every major pro sports league on policing prediction markets

Chairman Mike Selig of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said his agency is in talks with all major U.S. professional sports leagues as federal regulators deepen oversight of sports-related prediction markets.

The regulator is seeking broader cooperation with leagues to monitor insider trading and market manipulation tied to event contracts, Selig said Tuesday at the annual FINRA conference in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, following an earlier CFTC announcement of a data-sharing agreement with Major League Baseball in March.

“We’ve entered into a memorandum of understanding with Major League Baseball, and we’re in talks with all the professional sports leagues,” Selig said at the event, hosted by the brokerage industry's self-regulatory organization.

The CFTC agreement with baseball was its first formal information-sharing deal with a professional sports organization. The arrangement comes as federally regulated prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket move deeper into sports contracts, triggering disputes with state gaming regulators over who controls the sector.

Selig took an aggressive stance on that legal fight. He said the CFTC has already sued “about five or six states” over attempts to block federally regulated event contracts and pledged the agency would continue bringing cases against states that challenge the commission’s authority. Under U.S. law, derivatives listed on CFTC-regulated exchanges fall under federal oversight rather than state gaming laws, he's repeatedly argued.

“Different products, parallel regimes,” he said, comparing sports prediction contracts with traditional casino betting.

The chairman also outlined how the agency is approaching insider trading in prediction markets, an area regulators have only recently begun confronting.

Selig cited a case policed by the platform Kalshi involving YouTube creator MrBeast in which an employee allegedly traded ahead of market-moving information tied to online content releases. He also described hypothetical sports-related scenarios, including trainers or team staff trading on nonpublic injury information before games.

The exchanges themselves remain the “first line of defense,” Selig said, because they conduct know-your-customer and anti-money laundering checks that can help identify suspicious activity.

The CFTC also expects prediction markets to spread into mainstream investment products.

Selig said regulators are reviewing exchange-traded products and funds linked to prediction-market strategies and are coordinating oversight with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). SEC chair Paul Atkins is scheduled to speak at the conference later this afternoon.