The National Hockey League has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to protect the integrity of hockey-related prediction markets. The agreement creates a formal information-sharing framework between the league and the U.S. derivatives regulator. It is focused on event contracts tied to professional hockey games and other NHL-related markets.
Agreement covers information sharing
The MOU allows the NHL and CFTC to exchange confidential information when integrity concerns arise. The two sides will also appoint dedicated contacts to coordinate on market monitoring and possible threats.
The partnership is aimed at issues such as insider trading, fraud, manipulation and match-fixing. Those risks are getting more attention as sports event contracts grow in the U.S. prediction market debate.
CFTC Acting Chairman Caroline Pham signed the agreement with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. The deal supports the regulator’s work on sports-related event contracts listed on federally regulated exchanges.
NHL already works with prediction markets
The NHL has already moved closer to the prediction market sector. The league signed licensing agreements with Kalshi and Polymarket in 2025, allowing those platforms to use official NHL data and marks.
Those agreements gave hockey a stronger place in the fast-growing event contract market. They also made integrity controls more important, because official sports data can be used for market creation, pricing and settlement.
The new CFTC agreement adds more regulatory oversight to that commercial activity. It gives the league a direct channel to raise concerns if suspicious trading or unusual market behaviour appears around NHL-linked contracts.
Sports contracts remain disputed
Sports prediction markets are still facing legal challenges across the United States. Contracts based on game results or player performance are treated by some states as sports betting products and should be controlled by state gambling regulators.
Kalshi maintains that its event contracts are federally regulated financial products. That position has drawn the CFTC into a wider fight over whether sports markets belong under federal derivatives law or state betting laws. The NHL-CFTC agreement does not settle that legal question. It creates an oversight channel while courts continue to test how far sports event contracts can go.
MLB deal set earlier model
The CFTC signed a similar information-sharing agreement with Major League Baseball in March. That deal also focused on protecting sports integrity and monitoring event contracts linked to professional games. The NHL agreement now extends that model into another major U.S. sports league. More league-level deals could follow as prediction markets keep adding sports products.
