The NFL blocked commercials in the Super Bowl prediction market

It appears that ads from companies like Polymarket or Kalshi will not air during the upcoming Super Bowl. According to the NFL, the league placed market prediction commercials under “restricted categories” for Super Bowl advertising on February 8.

As reported by Front Office Sportstoday’s prediction markets fall under the same category as tobacco, pornography, firearms, “and other controversial topics.”

Prediction markets have become a concern within the sports industry. It’s something the NFL repeats, even though other companies use theirs name and license, gladly adopted it.

In recent months, a lot of news has been broken about the supposed games gambled away. While this mostly stems from proposition bets, there is increasing scrutiny of prediction markets.

NFL cuts predictions to market ads for Super Bowl amid betting scandals

Gambling commercials are not exempt, as a maximum of six are said to be aired this year. However, the NFL is pushing back on the prediction markets, as it claims they don’t have the same safeguards in place that regular sportsbooks provide.

In Kalshi, the bet for the Super Bowl game is weirdly titled as seen by ReadWrite. Instead of using any NFL branding, such as “Super Bowl”, “Seattle Seahawks”, or “New England Patriots”, it is labeled as “Pro Football Champion” in some instances.

Screenshots of the prediction market interfaces showing a 'Pro Football Champion: Seattle vs New England' wager and a 'Stanley Cup Champion?' market, with odds, percentages, and total betting volume displayed. — Examples of prediction markets that offer championship bets for the NFL and NHL. Credit: Kalshi / Polymarket

The bet is currently predicting that the Seahawks, or simply “Seattle”, will win against “New England” to become the winner. The same goes for the NBA, or “Pro Basketball Champion” game.

Meanwhile, as a hockey league, the The NHL welcomes prediction markets as part of the game world; it is fully licensed, with logos and registration marks.

Despite this, Kalshi currently has $153,624,734 in total for the game, which means a big cash payout is expected. Polymarket has the largest volume, sitting at $695,749,958. It also uses the same betting terminology.