NFL asks Supreme Court to let states regulate sports prediction markets
The NFL filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Thursday, Oct. 8, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review New Jersey’s fight with Kalshi over sports event contracts. The case asks who has authority over these markets: the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), or state gambling regulators. The Court has not agreed to hear the case or ruled on the issue. The official docket lists Kalshi’s response to New Jersey’s petition as due Nov. 9. The disagreement turns on how the contracts are classified. Kalshi says its yes-or-no event contracts are federally regulated financial products; New Jersey argues sports contracts function as gambling and should follow state betting laws. The Third Circuit ruled for Kalshi in April. The Sixth and Ninth Circuits have reached the opposite conclusion in related cases, creating a split that the NFL says warrants Supreme Court review. The league says the stakes are already large: its filing estimates that NFL-related contracts accounted for $1.8 billion of $3.3 billion in prediction-market trading on the first Sunday of this season. The NFL argues state systems offer stronger safeguards, including limits on bets it considers vulnerable to manipulation and a minimum age of 21. Those are the league’s claims in its brief, not findings by the Court. Kalshi disputes the NFL’s criticism, telling AP that the CFTC is actively policing the markets and working on rules; Polymarket has argued for a consistent federal framework rather than a patchwork of state laws. The Supreme Court’s eventual decision on whether to take the case could determine whether these sports contracts face state-by-state gambling rules or remain under federal oversight. Image: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, showing a Kalshi advertisement at Oracle Park. Sources: [Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/nfl-prediction-markets-602681c51cbcf9f3616467bc3f25e0a0) · [U.S. Supreme Court docket, No. 26-299](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26-299.html). 