A bipartisan coalition of 40 states has lined up alongside the NFL in asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the rapidly escalating battle over sports prediction markets. Attorneys general from 39 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief backing New Jersey's request for the justices to decide whether platforms such as Kalshi can offer sports event contracts under federal commodities law without complying with state gambling regulations. The NFL followed with its own filing on Thursday, arguing that sports prediction contracts are, in substance, gambling and that state gaming regulators are better equipped to police them.
The league told the court that $1.8 billion of the $3.3 billion traded on prediction markets on the first Sunday of the NFL season involved football-related contracts. At the heart of the fight is a basic question with potentially enormous consequences for the fast-growing industry: Are contracts that predict the outcome of games financial products regulated nationally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), or sports bets that states can license, tax and restrict? The federal courts are divided, the Third Circuit sided with Kalshi in its dispute with New Jersey, while the Sixth and Ninth Circuits have reached conclusions more favorable to state regulators.
New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to resolve that split. Newsweek has contacted the NFL, Kalshi, the CFTC and gaming regulators in several states for comment. The coalition supporting New Jersey includes states from across the political spectrum and with different approaches to gambling.
They are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The District of Columbia also joined the filing. Ohio led the brief, which argues that courts are "hopelessly confused and divided" over whether the Commodity Exchange Act overrides state sports-gambling laws.
The states say prediction markets should not be able to avoid gambling regulation simply by describing sports wagers as federally regulated financial contracts. Their filing argues that state gambling laws provide protections—including licensing requirements, exclusion lists, minimum-age rules and spending limits—designed to address problem gambling. The NFL is not arguing that prediction markets should disappear altogether.
Instead, it says sports-related contracts need stronger protections around game integrity and consumer safety. The league has raised particular concerns about contracts involving outcomes that could potentially be influenced or known in advance by a player, coach, official or other insider. Examples include whether a kicker misses a field goal, whether a player is injured, an officiating decision or whether the first play of a game is a run or pass.
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