A judge, a city council and a bank all moved against sport's newest betting markets in one week

Prediction markets are the fastest-growing thing in sport that most fans have never used. On Kalshi or Polymarket you do not place a bet with a bookmaker. You buy a contract at a price between zero and a dollar, and the price is the crowd’s estimate of the chance. If Arsenal trade at 35 cents, the market is saying 35%.

That distinction - market or bet - is now the whole legal fight. And in the last week it went badly for the industry on four separate fronts.

Four fronts in seven days

A judge in Washington state ordered Kalshi to stop offering most of its wagers there [3]. New York City’s council opened an investigation into four platforms at once - Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini Titan - over marketing that it says targets young users [1][2]. Council Speaker Julie Menin sent the letters on 11 August, accusing the firms of predatory marketing [2]. The Wall Street Journal called it a new front in a “state-by-state legal war” over how these markets are regulated [1].

Then the data layer pushed back. FlightAware sued Kalshi in a New York federal court over contracts on flight cancellations [4]. Kalshi had named the flight-tracking firm as the source used to decide who won, the company says, without asking permission [4]. And Reuters reported that JPMorgan quietly cut Polymarket off as a banking client back in October, citing regulatory concerns [5]. Polymarket disputes the framing and says its relationship with the bank is close and active [5].

The industry’s own numbers explain the nerves. In the three months to June, Kalshi referred 32 possible insider traders to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the small federal agency that polices it [6]. The commission has as many as 20 open investigations from Kalshi’s evidence alone, and Kalshi is one of 13 firms in the sector [6]. So far it has brought civil charges against three bettors [6]. The agency is running its smallest staff in at least 20 years [6].

What these markets actually price

Sport is where the growth is. Kalshi now runs a market on which college football programmes leave their conference [7]. Florida State, Miami and Clemson each sit at 13% to 14% to join the SEC or the Big Ten by July 2027 [7]. That is not a prediction by Kalshi. It is where buyers and sellers meet.

The contrast with the traditional game is sharp. Premier League shirts lost their betting logos this season after clubs voted to ban them [8]. Eleven of the twenty clubs had carried some kind of betting brand. Eight needed a new sponsor this summer, and Nottingham Forest, Sunderland and Chelsea had still not found one [8]. Gambling is being pushed off the shirt while a market-shaped version of it grows inside the phone.

ESPN’s season preview made the mechanism unusually plain. Its writer’s forecasts - Arsenal for the title, Hull, Ipswich and Coventry down - were simply read off the betting odds, because those are the most likely outcomes [9]. He then stripped out the bookmaker’s fee to recover the real chances: Arsenal 34.58% for the title, the other nineteen clubs 65% between them [9]. In the most-assists market, the raw prices implied a total of 220% [9]. Anything over 100% is the fee.

The money at the top keeps arriving anyway

Fenway Sports Group confirmed the sale of 30% of Liverpool for 1.65bn pounds, valuing the club at 5.5bn [10]. The buyers, trading as 1892 Holdings, include Jeff Bezos, Eduardo Saverin and Amit Bhatia, who becomes vice-chair [10][12]. Sportico put the valuation just over 7bn dollars and called it a record for a football-club investment, past the roughly 5.8bn Manchester United mark set in 2024 [11]. FSG bought Liverpool in 2010 for 300m pounds and keeps control [10][11].

The Los Angeles Lakers agreed to sell at 12.5bn dollars to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger - the highest valuation ever agreed for control of a sports team [13]. Sportico notes the seller, Mark Walter, faces federal investigations across his businesses, and the deal is still far from closing [13]. Sportico’s annual NFL valuations put the average team at 9.34bn dollars, up 31% in a year, the biggest jump since the list began in 2020 [14]. The Cowboys lead at 15.5bn; the bottom-ranked Bengals are worth 7.4bn [14].

The Yankees raised 2.6bn dollars from Apollo Sports Capital in a credit-and-equity deal, with the Steinbrenners keeping control [15]. Agents read it as proof baseball’s business is healthy; others read the same deal against a possible lockout that could threaten the 2027 season [16].

Where it is not arriving

Not every pipe is flowing. Roger Goodell’s plan to rewrite the NFL’s television contracts before this season has stalled [17]. Fox’s Lachlan Murdoch said his company will make no changes before the league’s own option to reopen the deal, which lands after 2029-30 [17]. Tampa is rebuilding the funding model for the Rays’ 2.3bn-dollar ballpark [18]. Instead of a direct city payment of up to 180m dollars, the new plan draws on the extra tax raised by new development around the ground [18].

And Fifa’s own commercial plan is dead. Gianni Infantino withdrew the Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme on 1 August after Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian confederation objected, with Uefa threatening to boycott Fifa competitions [21]. The Guardian reported that Europe’s leading clubs had issued their own ultimatum hours before the plan was scrapped, warning that future Club World Cup cooperation depended on it [19]. The pressure has not stopped: a boycott threat now hangs over September’s Women’s Under-20 World Cup, with Fifa elections set for 18 March [20][21].

Lower down, the ordinary business of football carried on. Wrexham agreed a club-record 8m pounds for Sunderland goalkeeper Anthony Patterson, beating the 7.5m they paid for Nathan Broadhead last summer [22].