The NBA has new partners in Kalshi and Polymarket. Whether their sports offerings amount to financial trading or illegal gambling? The league is leaving that one to the courts.
“We’ll let the courts decide,” NBA executive Scott Kaufman-Ross told David Purdum of ESPN. “The jurisdictional issue is not our issue. Our issue is the way that our game is impacted.”
The league announced Monday that Kalshi and Polymarket will become its preferred prediction market platforms, receiving access to official data and permission to use NBA marks and logos.
For fans unfamiliar with the business, these platforms let users buy and sell contracts tied to outcomes, including sporting events. Critics say that looks an awful lot like sports betting.
Several states agree enough to challenge the industry in court. New York is among those suing, while New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to take up the regulatory dispute.
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The NBA says its agreements include information sharing, greater influence over available markets and an understanding with the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Kaufman-Ross said the league waited until it was comfortable with those protections.
“We were really just waiting for that moment where we felt like we had all of the proper pieces in place in order for us to get comfortable to move forward,” he said.
The contracts also account for the possibility that the companies could lose the ability to offer sports markets.
So the NBA is getting into the business while making provisions for what happens if the courts change the business. That part of the deal may prove useful.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
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