Pro sports unions urge ban on bets tied to player injuries, underperformance

Five major pro sports unions pressed federal regulators to draw a hard line around prediction markets, arguing that contracts tied to a player’s underperformance, injury or other negative outcome belong on the wrong side of the sports-betting divide.

The NFL Players Association, Major League Baseball Players Association, National Basketball Players Association, National Hockey League Players’ Association and Major League Soccer Players Association urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to bar prediction market platforms from offering those wagers and to adopt “appropriate regulations” that protect athletes and their families in ways similar to state gambling rules. Their case is aimed squarely at markets built around player “unders,” injury outcomes and other negative propositions that can affect one athlete directly rather than a game as a whole.

The unions’ concern goes beyond competitive integrity. They argue that bets on whether a player falls short of a statistical line, or on whether an athlete is injured or penalized, create a uniquely personal incentive for harassment and manipulation. A single player can be pressured, targeted online or blamed for failing to deliver an outcome that determines a wager. That is the kind of risk leagues say they know how to police in sportsbook-style betting, but which becomes murkier if the contracts are treated like financial instruments.

The push comes as the CFTC has been reviewing prediction markets more closely. The agency issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on March 16, 2026, and took public comment through April 30. Its Division of Market Oversight also issued a March 12 advisory that flagged sports-related event contracts for special scrutiny, even as the commission said event contracts have existed in regulated U.S. markets for more than two decades.

The fight has already drawn in the leagues themselves. In a May 1, 2025 letter, the NBA warned that prediction markets were moving quickly from season-long outcomes to single-game trading and could soon extend to player proposition markets or injury markets. The league said those integrity risks are harder to manage than legal, state-regulated sports betting without sports-specific rules.

Major League Baseball has also moved closer to the regulator. The CFTC and MLB signed a memorandum of understanding in March 2026 to share information on integrity and prediction markets, a sign that the issue is now central to the league-regulator relationship.

The broader backdrop is familiar: legal sports betting has spread across pro sports since the federal ban was overturned in 2018, and lawmakers are now probing whether prediction markets offer a back door around the gambling rules leagues already know how to enforce. Sen. Richard Blumenthal added pressure on April 10, 2026, sending letters to the commissioners of the NFL, NBA, NCAA, MLB, NHL and MLS about sportsbook partnerships, addiction and abuse risks, and the integrity of their betting ties.