Kalshi to Offer Portal Betting, NCAA Furious at Decision

The online prediction market Kalshi says it plans to offer trading on whether college athletes will enter the transfer portal.

ESPN's David Purdum first broke the news on Thursday.

In a filing submitted to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Kalshi wrote that contracts on the transfer portal will initially be listed Dec. 17 and that it intends to list such markets daily. Transfer portal markets were not appearing on the site as of 8 p.m. ET Wednesday.

"We certify markets all the time that we do not end up listing," a Kalshi company spokesperson told ESPN.

According to Kalshi's filing, the markets will include NCAA Division I football and basketball players and will be settled when a player publicly announces their intent to enter or officially enters the transfer portal.

The NCAA is far from thrilled with this move. 

"The NCAA vehemently opposes college sports prediction markets," NCAA president Charlie Baker said in a statement to ESPN. "It is already bad enough that student-athletes face harassment and abuse for lost bets on game performance, and now Kalshi wants to offer bets on their transfer decisions and status. This is absolutely unacceptable and would place even greater pressure on student-athletes while threatening competition integrity and recruiting processes.

"Their decisions and future should not be gambled with, especially in an unregulated marketplace that does not follow any rules of legitimate sports betting operators."

Prediction markets like Kalshi allow users to trade on the yes/no outcomes of events, including sports. They operate under the oversight of the CFTC.

A handful of US states have objected to allowing prediction markets access, claiming they are not properly regulated within their respective jurisdiction to do so and that they do not pay the predetermined tax rate. 

On Friday, new entry into the prediction market space, Coinbase, announced it had sued regulators in Illinois, Michigan and Connecticut for their stance on such platforms.

• Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com