The National Basketball Association (NBA) is looking to gain access to prediction market data to help find potential insider trading and protect the integrity of its games, Commissioner Adam Silver said, as professional sports leagues seek oversight of markets tied to athletic events.
“Issues Around Integrity First and Foremost”
Speaking to CNBC’s Contessa Brewer on Squawk Box on Friday, October 9, Silver argued that prediction markets raise many of the same concerns as traditional sports betting, with special emphasis on contracts that involve sensitive information about teams, players and coaches.
“Whether it’s called a prediction market, whether it’s sports betting, it’s the same issues for our league, and I think for all the leagues, there are issues around integrity first and foremost,” Silver said.
“We want access to that data. We also want control of the market,” he added, while also questioning contracts based on events such as whether a coach will be fired, describing that type of trading activity as “odd behavior.”
The commissioner’s comments dropped amid growing debate over whether prediction markets offering contracts that are connected to sports outcomes should be treated like gambling by individual states in terms of regulations or whether they should be considered financial markets under federal oversight.
NFL Supports the State Gambling Options
The National Football League (NFL) filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court on Thursday, October 8, showing support for New Jersey regulators.
The league argued that sports-related prediction market contracts fall under gambling laws rather than federal rules governing financial swaps.
The NFL also showed concern regarding potential market manipulation involving contracts tied to player injuries and individual performance. The league believes that such markets could create opportunities for people with access to nonpublic information to profit from trades.
The league has also asked for the minimum trading age to be 21, thus matching the legal age for sports wagering in a number of US states.
Silver has agreed with that threshold while expressing a preference for federal regulation of prediction market platforms.
At the moment, the NBA operates across roughly 40 regulatory jurisdictions, Silver said, arguing that a consistent national framework would be preferable to a patchwork of different rules.
Legal Battle Carries On
The dispute comes amid rising trading volumes for NFL-related prediction market contracts during the busy football season.
Courts have also been divided over whether states can apply their gambling laws to platforms such as Kalshi or whether federal commodities regulation takes precedence.
In September, an appeals court ruled that states could regulate sports prediction markets. However, a more recent ruling in Illinois temporarily blocked the state from applying its gambling laws to event contracts offered by Kalshi and Coinbase.
The competing legal decisions have left the regulatory status of sports-related prediction markets unsettled.
For professional leagues, access to trading data could help identify suspicious activity and investigate whether trades are linked to confidential information.