The NFL told a congressional committee on Thursday that it is concerned about the growth of prediction markets and that it is especially concerned about sports contracts being offered in states where traditional betting has not been allowed.
The league provided written testimony to the House Committee on Agriculture during a hearing regarding the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s supervision of prediction markets. Prediction market oversight is a contentious legal subject. Leading prediction market organizations and state gambling authorities, who are in charge of traditional sportsbooks, are embroiled in legal disputes in several jurisdictions.
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Over the past year, prediction markets—which let users trade on the yes/no result of events, including sports—have grown in popularity. Only 39 states and the District of Columbia have legal sportsbooks, but all 50 states have prediction markets, according to the NFL.
In the hearing, NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller stated, “We are particularly troubled that several sports-related futures contracts have been launched nationwide, including in jurisdictions where sports betting has not been legalized.” “These contracts fall outside the purview of state regulatory authorities and the safeguards they impose upon the industry.”
Miller cautioned that bets on prediction markets might be significantly larger than those at sportsbooks, posing “substantially greater risks to contest integrity.”
“Across each of these state-regulated markets, regulators and state legislators closely monitor betting activity and, with input from professional sports leagues, can determine which bets and wager levels are acceptable,” he stated. “Those guardrails do not exist in prediction markets.”
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