NCAA’s Charlie Baker Asks CFTC to Suspend College Contracts

Posted on: January 15, 2026, 12:09h. 

Last updated on: January 15, 2026, 12:09h.

• NCAA President Charlie Baker wants the CFTC to halt college sports event contracts
• A massive college basketball betting scandal dropped today

NCAA President Charlie Baker has called on the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to direct the prediction market platforms it regulates to suspend sports event contracts involving collegiate athletics.

On Wednesday, Baker delivered his State of College Sports address from the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center just outside of Washington, DC, in Oxon Hill, adjacent to MGM National Harbor. Coinciding with his annual address, Baker wrote a letter to CFTC Chair Michael Selig asking the financial regulator to address controversial sports event contracts being traded on the derivative markets it governs.

Protecting the well-being of student-athletes and the integrity of competition are of the highest priority to the NCAA, and the growth and haphazard nature of collegiate sport prediction markets pose a significant threat to both. I implore you to suspend collegiate sport prediction markets until a more robust system with appropriate safeguards is in place,” Bake pleaded.

Baker’s letter can be found here.

Last year, prediction markets began launching event contracts involving the outcomes of sports and players’ performances. Critics argue that the contracts constitute unregulated sports gambling. Platforms like Kalshi claim they differ from traditional sports betting because there is no “house” and that users are trading outcomes in a peer-to-peer arrangement.

Oversight Needed

Being financial instruments, prediction markets are not monitored by state gaming regulators. As such, they typically lack the game integrity monitors that sportsbooks are required to implement, such as detecting irregular and suspicious betting.

Baker’s CFTC plea comes as a wide-ranging federal indictment in Pennsylvania’s Eastern District Court was handed down today. Federal prosecutors allege that the college basketball point-shaving scheme involved 39 college athletes on 17 NCAA Division 1 teams.

The NCAA works with regulated sportsbooks to monitor over 23,000 sporting competitions a year for suspicious betting.

While it appears that some monitoring occurs in prediction market trading, sport integrity monitoring is nuanced and requires heightened levels of review that don’t exist in many prediction markets,” Baker opined. “For example, tracing the geolocation of bettors is often critical data in determining a sports integrity matter, but doesn’t appear to exist on prediction market platforms. There also don’t appear to be requirements for prediction market operators to report integrity concerns to other operators through a licensed intermediary to protect consumers.”

FanDuel Predicts said today its prediction market is now live in all 50 states, though sports contracts are only available in states where FanDuel’s online sportsbook does not operate. FanDuel Predicts has sports contracts in Alabama, Alaska, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah.

NCAA Partnerships

Baker tells Selig that sportsbooks regulated by state gaming industries are required to work collaboratively with the NCAA to ensure the integrity of college sports. That includes reporting suspicious activity and cooperating in investigations.

Until the CFTC can develop and implement appropriate safeguards, Baker asks that the financial regulator “suspend trading on these markets.” Baker says he’s available to assist the CFTC in “developing a future marketplace that has the necessary safeguards to protect student-athletes, consumers, and college sport competitions.”