Kalshi has removed all sports-related mention markets from its platform as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) examines whether the contracts are especially vulnerable to manipulation, NPR reported Thursday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the probe.
Mention markets allow traders to take positions on whether someone will say a particular word or phrase during a defined event. Sports mention contracts asking whether an announcer or analyst will use terms like “MVP” or “redshirt” during a game broadcast have been removed “until further notice,” according to the report.
But Kalshi has not withdrawn mention markets altogether. Its current catalog continues to include contracts tied to political appearances, corporate earnings calls, press conferences and other speaking events. The selective removal raises a key question: What makes those markets less susceptible to manipulation than contracts involving sports announcers?
“They are potentially very easy to manipulate, so the CFTC is taking a hard look at whether some of them make sense,” a person familiar with the inquiry told NPR. The review follows the disclosure that longtime Trump teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez is under investigation over mention market trades allegedly informed by advance knowledge of the president’s speeches. Kalshi said its surveillance detected the activity and referred it to federal regulators.
The NFL had separately asked operators in March to stop offering easily manipulated or predetermined contracts, expressly including announcer mention markets. Kalshi’s removal of sports mention markets comes less than a month before the start of the 2026-2027 NFL season, which is expected to be a significant volume driver for prediction market platforms.
Political, corporate and other non-sports mention markets remain live
As of Friday afternoon, Kalshi’s catalog included markets on what President Donald Trump would say during remarks in New York and over the course of the week; what executives at Klarna, Home Depot and Walmart would say during earnings calls; and what NASA representatives would say during a press conference.
The subjects differ, but the mechanics do not. A speaker can directly determine the outcome by choosing whether to use a listed term, while aides, employees or others involved in preparing remarks may know some of the planned language before it becomes public.
The vulnerability surfaced outside sports in October 2025 when Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong deliberately read several traded terms at the end of an earnings call. “I just want to add here the words Bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain, staking and Web3,” Armstrong said, instantly determining the outcome of contracts carrying $80,933 in volume on Kalshi and roughly $4,000 on Polymarket.
Armstrong later said the episode happened spontaneously after someone on his team shared the market link, and there was no indication that he had traded on the contracts. Still, it demonstrated how one speaker could unilaterally determine the outcome of a non-sports mention market, the same structural concern now drawing scrutiny from federal regulators.
NFL pressure put sports mentions in the crosshairs
The NFL’s March request was not its last word. In a July 27 comment, the league urged the CFTC to “expressly prohibit the listing, trading, or clearing” of contract categories that are “particularly susceptible to manipulation or that raise other public policy concerns.”
The filing focused partly on “Knowable in Advance” contracts involving the first play of a game, coaching decisions and roster or personnel decisions. Although it did not expressly repeat the call to remove announcer markets, it followed the league’s earlier letters to exchanges, which singled out broadcast mentions and celebrity-attendance contracts alongside injury, officiating and other markets the NFL considered easily influenced or predetermined.
The CFTC’s June rule proposal likewise does not specifically address announcer mention markets. But it generally treated sports outcomes based on objective, verifiable data more favorably while identifying manipulation, information leaks and outcomes controlled by a small number of people as public-interest concerns.
That sequence makes NFL pressure a plausible reason sports mention markets were removed first, particularly with the new football season approaching. It does not, however, establish that the league prompted Kalshi’s action, nor has either the company or the CFTC confirmed a connection.
NFL mention markets drew significant volume
According to DeFi Rate data, Kalshi offered announcer mention markets on 64 NFL games during the 2025-2026 season, generating more than $47 million in combined trading volume. Early-season games drew less than $500,000, while volume reached $3.55 million per game during the conference championships.
Kalshi also introduced mention-market combos in November 2025, allowing traders to bundle multiple terms into one position. By the Super Bowl, individual broadcasts were drawing millions of dollars in trading, making the sports pullback a meaningful product change.
Industry split over whether mention markets should go
The NPR report drew divided reactions from prediction market operators, policy experts, traders and others on social media. Alex Kane, founder and CEO of sports betting exchange Sporttrade, supported a broader withdrawal.
Financial-regulation lawyer Todd Phillips argued on X that eliminating sports mention contracts should be only the first step.
“Kalshi needs to take them down across the board,” Phillips wrote. “There is zero hedging utility in these contracts.”
Others lamented the loss of a popular trading category. Pseudonymous prediction market commentator Tyrael said on X that the sports contracts “got good volume and many folks enjoyed participating in them,” suggesting Polymarket could fill the void left by Kalshi. Polymarket currently lists mention markets on its global platform but not its CFTC-regulated U.S. app, according to NPR.
The disagreement reflects the broader question facing regulators: whether surveillance and restrictions on insider trading can adequately protect mention markets or whether the contracts are structurally too easy to influence.
Kalshi has so far drawn that line at sports, but the CFTC’s review could determine whether the distinction holds.
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