The NCAA asked a federal regulatory body Wednesday to stop prediction markets from offering trades on college sports until more safeguards are in place.

In a letter addressed to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets, NCAA president Charlie Baker said the growth of prediction markets poses a threat to the well-being of student-athletes as well as the integrity of competition.

“I implore you to suspend collegiate sport prediction markets until a more robust system with appropriate safeguards is in place,” Baker wrote.

Baker identified several areas where he believes prediction markets need additional safeguards: age restrictions, advertising restrictions, robust integrity monitoring, the involvement of national governing bodies such as the NCAA, restrictions on prop bets, harm reduction resources and anti-harassment measures.

Kalshi, a leading prediction market company, uses IC360, a firm that monitors the betting market for irregularities and works with sports leagues, including the NCAA. Baker acknowledged that some prediction markets monitor for integrity concerns but said “heightened levels of review that don’t exist in many prediction markets” are needed, such as tracing the geolocation of bettors. He also said prediction market operators are not required to report integrity concerns to other operators through an intermediary — a requirement for sportsbooks in most states.

He added that the NCAA is willing to work with the CFTC to develop these protections, which exist for legal sportsbooks.

ESPN has reached out to the CFTC and the Coalition for Prediction Markets, which represents many of the largest operators, for comment.

Baker also discussed the request in a speech Wednesday at the 2026 NCAA Convention.

“So-called prediction markets are offering what anyone can see is unregulated betting on college games,” he said. “We need federal regulators to stabilize this market.”

In his speech, Baker referenced the steps Kalshi had taken to offer markets on the transfer portal as an example of why the NCAA needs federal intervention. In December, Kalshi notified the CFTC that it was self-certifying markets on whether college athletes would enter the transfer portal. Though Kalshi said it has no immediate plans to begin offering trading on the portal, the decision drew sharp criticism from the NCAA.

Prediction markets, which allow users to trade on the yes/no outcome of events, including sports, have increased in popularity over the past year. While traditional sportsbooks operate in 39 states and the District of Columbia, where the betting age is usually 21, prediction markets are available in all 50 states to users 18 and older.

Oversight of prediction markets is a hotly contested legal issue. State gambling regulators, which oversee traditional sportsbooks, are locked in legal battles in multiple states with leading prediction market companies.

Those companies say they are not sportsbooks because users are not going up against the house but instead trading contracts with other users on the opposite side of the proposition. While bookmakers charge a vig, or commission, on losing wagers, prediction markets make money from a transaction fee, similar to a broker, and have no stake in the result.

Major sports leagues have so far been split on the question of prediction markets. The NFL has expressed its concern about the industry’s rise to Congress, while the NHL and UFC have inked deals with Kalshi and prediction market company Polymarket.

OXON HILL, Md. — The head of the new regulatory body for college sports urged schools to sign an agreement sent out nearly two months ago pledging to abide by new rules that govern how to pay players, saying, “If there was a time to stick out your neck, it’s now.”

Bryan Seeley, the CEO of the 7-month-old College Sports Commission, used his presentation at the NCAA convention Wednesday to thank leaders from four schools who put out a statement backing the agreement. He urged others to sign on.

“My sense is that the vast majority of schools want to sign this,” Seeley said. “But I suspect if a school wants this, you’re thinking, ‘Why am I going to stick my neck out [if other schools won’t also sign],'” Seeley said. “If there was a time to stick out your neck, it’s now.”

In late November, the CSC sent its university participation agreement, an 11-page document that all 68 schools from the four largest Division I conferences need to sign for it to go into effect. It outlines the CSC’s role in monitoring how schools pay out the $20.5 million they’re allowed to spend on players’ name, image and likeness and looks at how the CSC regulates third-party payments to players.

But the most contentious part of the agreement is language that forbids schools from suing the agency.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in directing that state’s schools not to sign, called the agreement a “power grab.” Other state AGs followed suit.

On Tuesday, school presidents at Arizona, Washington, Virginia Tech and Georgia released a statement urging their colleagues to sign on.

“Stability is not created by new rules alone, but by a willingness to live by them,” the statement read.

Seeley latched onto that with a plea of his own to a roomful of college sports administrators.

“I’m not of the belief that college sports is fundamentally broken and the sky is falling, but there are definitely problems,” Seeley said. “No one from the outside is coming to fix those problems. We’ll either collectively come together to fix those problems or they won’t be fixed.”

Seeley said the CSC is talking to the conferences about tweaking some of the language — “fair feedback,” he called it — while cautioning that other proposed changes “would water the document down such that it has no enforcement … and would make it meaningless.”

Debate over the consequences of all 68 schools not signing the agreement has run the gamut, from those who believe the CSC could enforce its rules anyway to others who think it would eventually shutter the entire system.

Seeley gave a nod to proposals, now stalled in Congress, that could add muscle to many of the CSC’s functions.

“But we don’t know when that help is coming, and in the interim we should be working hard collectively to try to fix some [of the issues],” he said.