POPA ReconNFL amicus brief in New Jersey v. Kalshi: what the league argued
The NFL filed a friend-of-the-court brief at the U.S. Supreme Court backing New Jersey. Its position: sports prediction contracts are gambling that states should regulate, not swaps under exclusive federal (CFTC) jurisdiction. The brief's full text was not available, so what follows comes from press coverage of it.
Core argument
The NY Post reports the brief supports New Jersey and nearly 40 other states, and urges the Court to recognize prediction markets as gambling apps. ProFootballTalk frames the stakes. If the contracts fall under the CFTC's exclusive remit, they can be offered everywhere and states cannot regulate them. If not, each operator must follow every state's gambling laws, and could not offer sports markets where betting is not legal. One X post summarizes the brief as saying the contracts are "gambling, not financial swaps" and that state regulators, not the CFTC, should be in charge. That is a single user's summary, not the brief.
Integrity and age
Cointelegraph reports the NFL warned that some sports contracts could be manipulated and threaten game integrity. It also quotes the brief asking the Court to resolve the circuit split, give lower courts guidance and clarify the CFTC's authority. The NFL told CNBC, as quoted by ProFootballTalk, that neither the CFTC nor the platforms, despite persistent urging, "have banned categories of bets susceptible to manipulation or set a 21 age limit." The NY Post says the league stresses protecting the sport's integrity.
Volume figures
The NY Post says the league claimed football was $1.8 billion of prediction-market trading on the season's first Sunday, more than half the total. The X post cites $3.3 billion total and nearly $2 billion on NFL games. These figures differ between sources.
Context
New Jersey is challenging an appellate ruling that favored federal authority over Kalshi. Kalshi's spokesperson Dani Lever has said the company cannot be "regulated by 50 different regulators." Whether the Court will take the case is unclear.
The sources do not give the brief's legal reasoning on the statutory definition of a swap.