NFL Backs New Jersey in Supreme Court Fight Over Kalshi…
By Abdelaziz Fathi
AI summary of the source article
The National Football League filed an amicus brief in Flaherty v. KalshiEX, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Third Circuit ruling that shielded Kalshi from New Jersey gambling laws under federal preemption. The NFL contends sports outcome contracts are wagers rather than swaps serving economic hedging or price discovery functions, agreeing with conflicting rulings from the Sixth and Ninth Circuits. The league also raised integrity and consumer protection concerns, noting prediction markets allow participants aged 18 whereas sportsbooks require age 21. If the Supreme Court rejects Kalshi's swap characterization, nationwide distribution for sports prediction markets could be fragmented across individual state regulatory regimes.
Why it matters
The dispute could decide whether prediction markets operate nationwide under uniform CFTC federal oversight or face fragmented state-by-state gambling frameworks. A loss for Kalshi could impact a major source of trading volume, which saw $1.8 billion in NFL-linked contracts on a single Sunday.
Key facts
- The NFL filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to reject Kalshi's argument that sports event contracts qualify as CFTC-regulated swaps.
- Circuit courts are split, with the Third Circuit supporting federal preemption while the Sixth and Ninth Circuits rejected Kalshi's swap classification.
- NFL-linked contracts accounted for $1.8 billion of the $3.3 billion in prediction-market volume recorded on the first Sunday of the current season.