Goodell: NFL Wants ‘Stronger Regulations’ Before Any Prediction-Market Partnership

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league is in no hurry to partner with prediction-market operators and wants tougher regulation protecting the integrity of the game first, Legal Sports Report reported on September 14, 2026, relaying comments Goodell made in an interview with CNBC.

“So, we’re continuing to have conversations with them and talk to them about the things that we think they need to do to strengthen that so that they could be potential partners at some point in the future,” Goodell said, according to the report. He added: “We don’t feel like we have to be first in this. We feel like we’re going to be right, and the best thing to do is be patient.”

Goodell said he is proud of the relationships the NFL already has, which include sportsbook partnerships with DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel, per the report. He made clear that no prediction-market partnership has been announced, describing operators only as possible partners “at some point in the future” if conditions he described are met.

What the NFL has asked regulators to restrict

The league’s wish list is already on record with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In a letter reviewed by CNBC and reported in May 2026, Brendon Plack, the NFL’s senior vice president for government affairs and public policy, wrote to CFTC Chairman Michael Selig with a set of recommendations the league said were aimed at “protecting the integrity of the sporting events to which the prediction contracts relate” and “protecting participants in these prediction markets from fraudulent or manipulative behavior.”

According to CNBC’s account of the letter, the NFL’s requests included:

• Banning contracts deemed easily manipulated by a single person, such as whether a kicker will miss a field goal or whether a quarterback’s first pass will be incomplete.
• Restricting contracts on outcomes “knowable in advance,” like the first play of a game, and on “inherently objectionable” events such as injuries.
• Prohibiting “mentions” contracts tied to what broadcasters say on television.
• Raising the minimum age for sports-related prediction-market trading from 18 to 21, aligning it with typical online sports-betting requirements.
• Creating a distinct certification process for contracts tied to individual player performance, rather than the current self-certification regime.
• Requiring platforms to enter agreements with sports governing bodies establishing lists of prohibited participants, including league employees.
• Banning margin trading. “The permittance of event contracts that are not fully collateralized, as some have suggested, particularly related to sports markets, could amplify addictive behavior and loss risk,” Plack wrote, per CNBC.

The letter repeatedly pointed to state-level gambling regulations as a model for guardrails, CNBC reported.

The CFTC’s pending proposal

The NFL’s requests land in the middle of an active federal rulemaking. On June 10, 2026, the CFTC published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on amendments to Regulation 40.11, according to the commission’s announcement. The proposal would create a structured framework for deciding whether event contracts involve activities enumerated in Section 5c(c)(5)(C) of the Commodity Exchange Act — terrorism, assassination, war, gaming, or activity unlawful under federal or state law — and, if so, whether they are contrary to the public interest and barred from listing.

The proposal itself — which is open for comment and is not an adopted rule — would define “gaming” as an activity typically engaged in “for purposes of recreation or to entertain others,” governed by rules, with measurable outcomes depending on participants’ “luck, skill, or athletic ability.” It would also set a 90-day review process with specified milestones for contracts the commission places under scrutiny.

Where the NFL’s list and the proposal overlap

For sports specifically, the CFTC’s draft framework draws lines that substantially overlap with the NFL’s stated concerns. Factors weighing against a contrary-to-public-interest finding include contracts settling on aggregate outcomes — final scores, point differentials, win-loss results, tournament advancement, and individual or team statistical performance — along with objective, league-verified settlement data, established sport-level integrity frameworks, and formal information-sharing arrangements between exchanges and leagues or governing bodies.

On the other side, the commission said it would likely view several categories as contrary to the public interest: games depending entirely on random chance, player-injury contracts, contracts settling on officiating decisions, “discrete-action” contracts tied to a single play or act by a specific participant, physical-altercation contracts, and contracts on pre-collegiate sports.

Several of the NFL’s specific asks — injury markets and single-person, single-play contracts such as the first play of the game — track closely with categories the commission has preliminarily said would weigh toward prohibition. Other NFL requests, including the 21-and-up age requirement, the separate certification track for player-performance contracts, and the margin-trading ban, are not adopted requirements; the age and margin items do not appear in the CFTC proposal’s sports factors.

For traders and platforms, the practical picture remains unsettled on both fronts: the league has described conditions rather than announced any deal or timeline, and the federal framework it is lobbying toward is a proposal still gathering public comment, with the comment window set at 45 days after Federal Register publication. Goodell’s message, as reported, was that the NFL can afford to wait for both to resolve.