The NBA has struck a deal with the top U.S. derivatives regulator to help police prediction markets, becoming the latest major sports league to formalize an integrity partnership as betting on games moves onto federally regulated platforms.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that oversees the U.S. derivatives market, said Monday it signed a memorandum of understanding with the basketball league to protect the integrity of professional basketball in prediction markets. Under the agreement, the two sides will share information and communicate regularly on integrity matters while working to keep the markets fair and transparent, with a focus on flagging abuses such as insider trading and fraud. The NBA is now the third major North American sports league to sign such a pact with the regulator, following Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.

“The NBA joins the MLB and NHL in taking a responsible step toward protecting sports integrity and market participants from abuses in prediction markets like insider trading and fraud,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement, thanking Commissioner Adam Silver for prioritizing “the integrity of professional basketball and America’s financial markets.”

The pact reflects how quickly sports-outcome betting has migrated to CFTC-regulated venues like Kalshi and Polymarket, which let users trade “event contracts” on real-world outcomes, including who wins a given game. That shift has raised integrity concerns familiar to the gambling world, chiefly the risk that insiders could trade on nonpublic information. The league-regulator memorandums are meant to build a channel for flagging suspicious activity, following the NHL’s move to become the first major league to license its trademarks to a prediction market and MLB’s integrity agreement tied to a Polymarket deal.

The NBA is a pointed addition, given that the league is still reeling from one of the biggest betting scandals in recent memory. An October 2025 FBI operation led to the arrest of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and a coach over alleged involvement in gambling schemes, including one centered on manipulating game outcomes to influence bets. The case put a spotlight on exactly the kind of insider misconduct these partnerships are designed to catch, making the NBA’s cooperation with the CFTC especially resonant.

The partnership also lands amid a fierce jurisdictional fight over whether these markets fall under federal or state authority. Traditional sports betting in the U.S. is licensed and regulated state by state, while the CFTC recently moved to define event contracts as “swaps,” placing them squarely within its remit while excluding casino-style gambling. Meanwhile, a court battle pitting the NFL against Kalshi has drawn the attention of the Supreme Court, and the NFL has so far balked at signing an integrity agreement of its own—making the NBA’s cooperation a notable contrast among the major leagues. Whether the NFL ultimately follows its peers, and how the court fight over jurisdiction unfolds, remain open questions for the market’s oversight framework.

The stakes are only growing. Analysts at Bernstein have projected that prediction markets could generate billions in revenue by the end of the decade, and new entrants keep arriving, with Blockchain.com among the latest to seek CFTC approval to offer event contracts. How that expansion is policed—and under whose authority—remains the unresolved question hanging over the market.