NFL urges Supreme Court to decide if feds or states should regulate prediction markets

Updated on: October 8, 2026 / 4:06 PM EDT / CBS News

The National Football League is urging the Supreme Court to decide whether the federal government or U.S. states should have legal authority to set the rules for prediction markets.

In an amicus brief filed in support of a September petition by the New Jersey attorney general's office, the NFL expressed support for prior court rulings favoring state regulation of prediction markets. Those rulings, from the Sixth and Ninth Circuits, "correctly concluded" that sports-related event contracts are not "swaps," but rather amount to "sports gambling," the NFL said in its brief.

The NFL filed its brief the day after a bipartisan coalition of states made a similar plea to the Supreme Court, asking it to resolve the regulatory dispute over prediction markets.

In its legal filing, the NFL asked the high court to decide whether states or the federal government should regulate prediction markets before the end of the pro football season in January. Any delay will "result in increasing consumer harm and risk to game integrity," the NFL wrote.

Prediction markets are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that oversees derivative markets, among other…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/moneywatch/