U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Mike Selig said his agency is in talks with all major U.S. professional sports leagues as federal regulators deepen oversight of sports-related prediction markets.
The regulator is seeking broader cooperation with leagues to monitor insider trading and market manipulation tied to event contracts, Selig said Tuesday at the annual FINRA conference in Washington, D.C., following an earlier CFTC announcement of a data-sharing agreement with Major League Baseball in March.
“We have signed a memorandum of understanding with Major League Baseball and are in discussions with all professional sports leagues,” Selig said at the event, organized by the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory organization.
The CFTC’s agreement with baseball was its first formal information-sharing agreement with a professional sports organization. The deal comes as federally regulated prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket delve deeper into sports contracts, sparking disputes with state gaming regulators over who controls the sector.
Selig took an aggressive stance in that legal fight. He said the CFTC has already sued “about five or six states” for attempts to block federally regulated event contracts and promised that the agency would continue to bring cases against states that challenge the commission’s authority. Under U.S. law, derivatives listed on CFTC-regulated exchanges are under federal supervision and not under state gaming laws, he has repeatedly argued.
“Different products, parallel regimes,” he said, comparing sports prediction contracts to traditional casino betting.
The president also described how the agency is addressing insider trading in prediction markets, an area that regulators have recently begun to address.
Selig cited a case monitored by the Kalshi platform involving YouTube creator MrBeast, in which an employee allegedly pre-traded market-moving information linked to online content releases. He also described hypothetical sports-related scenarios, including coaches or team staff exchanging non-public injury information before games.
The exchanges themselves remain the “first line of defense,” Selig said, because they carry out know-your-customer and anti-money laundering checks that can help identify suspicious activity.
The CFTC also expects prediction markets to extend to major investment products.
Selig said regulators are reviewing exchange-traded products and funds linked to market prediction strategies and are coordinating oversight with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). SEC Chairman Paul Atkins is scheduled to speak at the conference this afternoon.
Selig’s comments signal a broader shift at the CFTC under the Trump administration, which has embraced prediction markets and crypto-linked financial products after years of regulatory resistance toward the sector.
