PALM BEACH, Florida — Major League Baseball is considering partnering with prediction markets, commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday, a move that would further tie the league to sports betting while two Cleveland Guardians pitchers face federal charges for an alleged pitch-rigging scheme.
Owners were briefed this week at their quarterly meetings about the possibility of partnering with Polymarket and Kalshi, federally regulated markets that allow wagering in an endless array of areas, including sports. MLB’s partnerships with sports gambling companies give it access to the sort of data that tied Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase and starter Luis Ortiz to irregular betting patterns last year and wound up in their arrests.
Striking a deal with prediction markets, the commissioner said, would allow the league similar access to monitor a business so new that Manfred only learned of it in recent months. Currently, the NHL and UFC are the only major professional sports leagues partnering with Polymarket and Kalshi.
«We thought it was important for the owners to be updated on why prediction markets are different than sports betting — why we might want to consider being in be business with prediction markets in an effort to protect our integrity, to get the kind of protections we need,» Manfred said. «The regulatory framework, very different. Obviously state by state on the sports betting side, federal on the other.»
While states oversee sports gambling, prediction markets are ostensibly regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In early February, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a «consumer alert» calling prediction markets «unregulated gambling» and said contracts involving sports could violate state laws and pose «significant financial risk» for users.
«There’s obviously an opportunity to work with the markets themselves to get the kind of integrity protections you want,» Manfred said.
Recent court filings alleged that Clase’s involvement in pitch-rigging — in which prosecutors say he would intentionally throw a ball on the first pitch of an inning, with others involved in the scheme placing bets on him to do so — was far more widespread than originally thought. Clase’s involvement with bettors dates back to 2023, according to a filing from Ortiz’s attorney, and comprise at least 48 games over two years.
Asked why the integrity firms or MLB did not flag the issue earlier, Manfred said: «Sometimes it takes time for those patterns to become clear.»
