Prediction Markets Are Disrupting Sports Betting. Football Season Will Show the Scale
The NFL and college football seasons are expected to reveal the extent to which prediction markets are impacting sportsbooks.
Since prediction markets began offering trading on events involving sports outcomes in 2025, the gaming industry has cried foul over claims that the financial exchanges were unlawfully poaching customers from sportsbooks.
With the NFL and college football seasons having kicked off, the coming months should paint a more accurate picture of whether the claims are grounded in reality.
Prediction markets allow traders to buy and sell shares of sports outcomes, like whether the Kansas City Chiefs will win tonight (Sept. 14) on “Monday Night Football.”
The American Gaming Association (AGA), which represents the regulated sports betting industry, believes prediction markets are hurting sportsbooks, recently suggesting that legal betting on the NFL this year will stall for the first time since 2018.
Calling sports prediction markets “backdoor sports betting,” AGA President and CEO Bill Miller said the platforms regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are “dangerously misleading … by marketing sports wagers as an investment.”
The NFL regular season began last week, and with college football two weeks in, September could provide more clarity into the impact that prediction markets are having on sports betting.