All US sportsbooks and prediction markets are ready to kickoff the 2025 NFL season Thursday night – except Polymarket.
A no-action letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission gives the brand a green light to return to the United States, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said Wednesday on Twitter. The company bought Florida-based exchange QXC for $112 million in July to once again operate in the US after the CFTC ordered it to cease operations in 2022.
The launch will not come in time for the first game of the NFL season, though. Polymarket’s submitted rules are not effective until Friday, after the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys start off regular season NFL betting on Thursday.
When will Polymarket be in the US?
More technical work and compliance checks will need to be completed before Polymarket can once again offer its prediction market to Americans, though the company expected to launch in the “near future” when it purchased QXC.
That means predictions competitors like Kalshi and recently launched Underdog get a jump on user acquisition for the beginning of the season.
There is still a significant slice of US adults that do not have legal sports betting, even when just considering the states of California and Texas, where sports predictions could be in demand. With limited markets, though, the prediction products could struggle to gain traction in states with legal online sports betting.
‘Too few guardrails’ on predictions
Outgoing CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson noted the surge in interest concerning prediction markets in her outgoing comments and showed concern for their oversight.
“As of today, we have too few guardrails and too little visibility into the prediction market landscape,” Johnson said. “Because the target audience for these contracts is retail customers and some market participants seem to be marching down a path to offer leveraged, margined prediction market contacts to retail investors, there is an urgent need for the Commission to express in a clear voice our expectations related to these contracts.
“A bi-partisan group of members of Congress indicated that they agreed that the CFTC should not be required to police election contacts and expressed concerns about betting on the outcome of democratic elections. There are also a number of legal questions surrounding these contracts that the Commission should use the rulemaking process with embedded notice and comment period obligations to create effective regulation to address.
