The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the National Hockey League have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to share information and coordinate oversight of prediction markets tied to professional hockey games. The agreement, signed on May 21 by CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, is designed to protect market integrity and guard against insider trading on regulated platforms.

A growing playbook for sports prediction oversight

The CFTC signed a similar MOU with Major League Baseball back in March 2026, and the agency is reportedly in active discussions with all major US professional sports leagues.

The NHL was already ahead of most leagues on this front. In 2025, it became the first major US sports league to officially partner with both Kalshi and Polymarket, the two most prominent prediction market platforms operating in the space. That early embrace of event contracts meant the league already had integrity monitoring infrastructure in place.

The new agreement builds on that existing framework rather than creating fresh binding regulatory obligations. The NHL doesn’t suddenly face additional compliance burdens, and the CFTC doesn’t gain new enforcement powers it didn’t already have. What changes is the speed and formality of information exchange between the two organizations.

Why prediction markets need sports league cooperation

The NHL maintains its own surveillance systems that track betting patterns across authorized platforms. When those systems flag unusual activity, the league can now share that intelligence directly with federal regulators through a formalized channel.