CAA president Charlie Baker is urging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to suspend college-sports “event contracts” on prediction markets, arguing the products are expanding faster than the guardrails needed to protect athletes and preserve competitive integrity.
In a letter dated January 14, 2026, Baker asked CFTC chairman Michael Selig to halt collegiate offerings “until a more robust system with appropriate safeguards is in place,” framing the issue as a direct risk to student-athlete well-being and game integrity.
The NCAA’s ask lands as college sports reach record scale: the association reported 554,298 student-athletes participating in championship sports in the 2024–25 academic year—an all-time high. Baker’s message is that adding federally-regulated, nationwide “contracts” on college games piles onto an ecosystem already stressed by gambling-related harassment and integrity threats.
Baker laid out a specific wish list: age and advertising restrictions, stronger integrity monitoring (including investigative tools such as geolocation), a ban on prop-style markets tied to individual performance, and clearer anti-harassment and harm-reduction measures—along with formal involvement from college sports authorities in integrity processes. The letter also revives the NCAA’s recent clash with prediction markets after reports that Kalshi explored contracts related to the transfer portal, drawing sharp criticism from Baker and the wider college sports community. Selig is newly in the hot seat: he was sworn in as the CFTC’s 16th chairman on December 22, 2025, after Senate confirmation on December 18.
NCAA raises red flag over college football prediction markets
The agency is being pulled deeper into event-contract oversight as platforms expand into sports and states push back. That pushback is already in court. Reuters reported a federal judge temporarily blocked Tennessee regulators from stopping Kalshi’s sports event contracts, with a January 26 hearing set on a longer injunction—one example of a broader multi-state fight over whether these products are federally protected markets or unlicensed sports betting.
