Key Takeaways
Kalshi is expanding its presence across Major League Baseball after signing multi-year brand partnerships with five of the sport’s biggest clubs.
However, Kalshi’s push into mainstream sports comes as the prediction market industry faces mounting scrutiny.
Lawmakers are demanding action on wildfire contracts previously offered by rival Polymarket, while state regulators continue to challenge whether sports-event contracts amount to unlicensed gambling.
Kalshi Pushes Deeper Into Mainstream Sports
The prediction market platform announced on Aug. 25 that it had struck deals with the Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, and San Francisco Giants.
Kalshi, founded in 2018 and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), offers markets covering subjects including sports, politics, economics, entertainment, and technology.
The five MLB agreements represent a major expansion of the company’s sports marketing strategy.
Each partnership will feature a mixture of stadium advertising, digital promotions, radio placements, and fan activations.
Under a separate announcement from the team, Kalshi will receive LED advertising around Dodger Stadium and naming rights to the venue’s Gold Glove Bar.
The space will be renamed the Kalshi 435 Club, depicting the distance a home run would need to travel to reach its entrance.
Adam Barrick, Kalshi’s head of sports partnerships, said fans were already “engaging with their favorite teams on Kalshi.”
Wildfire Contracts Spark Ethics and Arson Concerns
The industry’s rapid growth has also intensified questions over which events should be open to financial speculation.
In an Aug. 3 letter to CFTC Chair Michael Selig, nine Democratic senators from six states called for tougher restrictions on wildfire contracts.
The lawmakers pointed to more than $1.2 million in trading on Polymarket markets connected to the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles in January 2025.
Those markets allowed users to speculate on questions including when the fires would be contained, whether flames would reach particular neighborhoods, and how many acres would ultimately burn.
The letter asked the CFTC whether it was considering prohibiting regulated exchanges from listing wildfire contracts.
The controversy centers on Polymarket’s offshore service rather than Kalshi.
Kalshi has not offered wildfire contracts, and its head of communications, Elisabeth Diana, told The Guardian that the platform avoids them because they create “perverse incentives.”
Prediction Markets Face a Wider Legal Reckoning
The wildfire dispute forms only one part of a growing challenge to the prediction market business model.
Earlier in August, King County Superior Court Judge John McHale ordered Kalshi to stop offering several categories of event contracts to Washington residents.
Kalshi may continue to offer contracts tied to commodities, climate, economics, and finance in the state.
Washington customers can also close positions they already hold in the restricted categories.
The order required Kalshi to introduce an IP address and residency-based block by Aug. 19, followed by a multi-source geofencing system by Sept. 2.
The company could face penalties of $120,000 for every day it misses the second deadline.
Polymarket, meanwhile, has faced pressure from the banking sector.
JPMorgan ended one of the platform’s banking relationships in October 2025 because of regulatory concerns, the Financial Times reported.
The company subsequently found another bank, whose identity has not been disclosed.
