NHL Breaks Ice With Kalshi, Polymarket Partnership, 'Be On Lookout For More'

By Bill Speros Oct 22nd, 2025 2:51 PM EDT

The NHL has partnered with Kalshi and Polymarket. (USA TODAY)

The NHL Wednesday became the first major North American professional sports league to align itself with prediction markets, namely Kalshi and Polymarket.

The multiyear NHL-Kalshi-Polymarket Partnership breaks a major barrier that had stood between prediction markets and the so-called "Big Four" leagues. The deal gives each prediction site access to NHL logos and data, the same data and logos used by top sports betting sites.

More importantly, it offers the prediction markets legitimacy and a blessing from a major sports organization.

Until this deal, neither the NHL, NBA, NFL nor Major League Baseball had gone on the record in support of prediction markets. Rather, their opposition had been publicly voiced to the media and in letters to the Commodities Futures Trading Corporation, which federally regulates prediction markets.

"This is a big deal,” Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour told told CNBC host Becky Quick. He called the deal a testament to our “golden standard" of market integrity and customer protection. “It’s a seminal moment for prediction markets and Kalshi because a league like the NHL partnering with us is a strong sign that prediction markets are here to stay.”

Kalshi: Be On Lookout For More Announcements

Mansour confirmed that Kalshi is in talks with other major pro sports leagues.

“We have set up a framework for us to collaborate with a Big Four league like the NHL, and they’re kind of taking a market leadership position here, in how we develop data sharing to combat fraud. To insure customer protection. And to preserve market integrity. That same framework that Kalshi has developed with the NHL can be replicated across the other leagues. So be on the lookout for more announcements soon,” he told CNBC.

Prediction markets are available in all 50 states, including the 11 states that currently do not offer legal retail or online sports betting. “We spent years working with the federal government to regulate prediction markets,” Mansour said. “The NHL is essentially a validation of the fact that we have established the right set of customer protection and the right set of market integrity measures to protect our markets, and also the game.”

Polymarket and Kalshi combined for more than $2 billion volume last week, and 8 of the top 10 popular markets this past week on Kalshi were either NFL or NCAA college football games.

NHL Deal Could Boost DraftKings, FanDuel, As Well

The NHL-Kalshi-Polymarket Partnership may be a boost to both DraftKings and Fan Duel. Both operators have partnerships with the NHL and the other major pro sports leagues.

An industry source told Bookies.com that sports betting operators have held off on jumping into prediction markets for two major reasons. First, they have to balance concerns their partner leagues voiced about the integrity of prediction markets. Secondly, they have to weigh concerns about prediction markets voiced by the states in which the books currently operate.

The NHL deal appears to have knocked down one of those major barriers. FanDuel and DraftKings may accelerate their adaptation of sports trading markets in states that have yet to legalize sports betting.

The NHL-Kalshi-Polymarket Partnership announcement comes less than 24 hours after DraftKings announced its purchase of the Railbird trading exchange, and it intention to launch its own “DraftKings Prediction” site.

DraftKings said the “forthcoming mobile application that will allow customers to trade regulated event contracts on real-world outcomes across finance, culture, and entertainment.”

It specifically excluded mentioning sports-related trades.

For now.

Previously, FanDuel said it has teamed up with CME to build its own trading site.

NCAA, NBA Remain Opposed – At Least In Public

In April, speaking to a group from the Associated Press Sports Editors in New York, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told Bookies.com that the “jury’s still out, particularly on the legalities” of sports-related trades in prediction markets. “But we’ll continued to monitor them. Things evolve,” he said.

The legal status of sports-related trading remains unresolved in the courts. But , in the meantime, the trading sites have been free to offer sports-related trades.

NCAA President Charlie Baker called prediction markets a “grey area” and “part of the problem” while speaking to the same group from the Associated Press Sports Editors in April in response to a question from Bookies.com.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was more direct:

“These new trading markets, we’re watching them closely. We’re not participating in them. We’re not accepting advertising from them,” Silver said in response to a question from Bookies.com on April 28. “I am concerned about what integrity protections are in place . . . Our strong preference is for these to be regulated markets.”

Three days later, the NBA sent a letter to the CFTC voicing its concerns about sports-related contracts. It followed a similar letter previously sent by MLB. 

"Without oversight and regulation tailored to the specific circumstances of sports wagering, the integrity risks posed by sports prediction markets are more significant and more difficult to manage than those presented by legal, regulated sports gambling,” the NBA’s letter said.

MLB Concerned About Lack Of Regulation

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said he was concerned about the lack of regulation in place concerning prediction markets vs. sports books.

“If they’re going to let it happen. It seems to me it’s got to be regulated in sort of the same way as legalized sports betting,” he said in response to a question from Bookies.com.

In its letter to the CFTC dated March 7, the MLB wrote:

“As the resemblance between sports event contracts and traditional sports betting markets continues to grow, so too does the need to replicate the integrity and consumer protections that exist at the state level. Currently, those protections are lacking. For example, MLB is not aware of anything that would require exchanges and brokers to notify leagues of potential threats to game integrity, cooperate with league investigations into player, umpire, or employee misconduct, or share data for integrity purposes.”

Wednesday, Bookies.com reached out to MLB and the NBA for an update and had not yet heard back.

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