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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission released a 267-page notice of proposed rulemaking on June 10, 2026, signaling it will permit sports event contracts including final scores, point differentials, win-loss results, tournament advancement, and individual or team statistical performance metrics across both single games and full seasons.
The draft distinguishes between markets tied to aggregate outcomes and those tied to contestable outcomes. Contracts based on final scores, team win-loss records, and season statistics are treated as presumptively permissible because they can reflect collective expectations rather than individual manipulation.
I'm pleased to announce that today, the @CFTC is officially seeking public comment on a structured framework for evaluating the types of events that may underpin contracts traded on prediction markets.
This proposal would give the CFTC durable, transparent rules of the road to…
— Mike Selig (@ChairmanSelig) June 10, 2026
Contracts the CFTC would disallow include trades on a specific play called for or executed by a specific player or team, such as a single pitch in baseball, a single shot in hockey, or a single foul in basketball. The agency also excluded markets on physical fights during games, player injuries, officiating decisions, and pre-collegiate sports events including high school competitions.
In June 2024, the prior CFTC administration published a proposed rulemaking that would have broadly identified political and sports-related event contracts as contrary to the public interest, effectively barring them from CFTC-regulated exchanges. That proposal was never finalized. In February 2026, the CFTC formally withdrew it, citing various forms of state regulatory actions and litigation concerning the Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction over event contract derivatives.
That posture changed in early 2026 when CFTC Chairman Mike Selig directed staff to withdraw the 2024 proposed rule. The agency then issued an advance notice of rulemaking in March 2026 seeking public input to create clear rules grounded in a coherent reading of the Commodity Exchange Act. Today’s notice of proposed rulemaking builds directly on that comment process.
The proposal also clarifies that election-related contracts are not classified as gaming under relevant federal law, a clarification that materially reduces legal risk for platforms that have offered political prediction markets. The agency takes a principles-based approach rather than approving all contracts simultaneously, with each contract evaluated on a case-by-case basis against the public-interest standard.
CFTC Chairman Mike Selig’s proposed rulemaking is the first of its kind for prediction markets, designed to provide the industry with a clear regulatory position to support continued growth in a sector that has drawn sustained attention for both sports and political betting.
The proposal did not arrive without industry lobbying from the opposite direction. In March 2026, the The National Football League (NFL) sent letters to prediction market operators urging them to refrain from offering contracts on outcomes the league described as objectionable bets, including contracts on easily manipulated outcomes, officiating decisions, events knowable in advance, and player injuries.
The NFL subsequently sent a formal letter to the CFTC on May 15, 2026, requesting that certain contracts be prohibited and that the agency impose heightened age restrictions and more robust information-sharing and enforcement mechanisms.
The CFTC’s response was partial accommodation. The banned categories align broadly with the NFL’s manipulation concerns, but the agency did not adopt the league’s broader framing that sports prediction markets are a form of gaming that should be regulated at the state rather than federal level.
The CFTC continues to pursue litigation in courts in broad support of its registrants’ rights to offer event contracts on sports and other topics, despite state officials and tribal gaming regulators arguing that doing so violates state and tribal gaming rights.
Numerous lawsuits have been filed by, on behalf of, or against prediction market operators over sports event contracts, and their legality is being challenged in courtrooms across the United States. Mick Mulvaney, executive director of a gambling industry group, stated that it is settled law that states and tribes are the rightful regulators of sports gambling, a position directly at odds with the CFTC’s assertion of exclusive federal jurisdiction under the Commodity Exchange Act.
The notice of proposed rulemaking is the penultimate step before a final enforceable rule. It defines key terms the CFTC uses to classify contracts, including whether an event constitutes gaming, and clarifies potential boundaries the agency will set for the sector.
As the CFTC argues its jurisdiction in court, the final rule will serve as a comprehensive public framework for its regulatory position. The 45-day comment period closes in late July.
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