{"id":547637,"date":"2026-03-19T22:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T22:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/547637\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T22:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T22:06:13","slug":"mlbs-polymarket-integrity-deal-has-limitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/547637\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB’s Polymarket ‘Integrity’ Deal Has Limitations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMLB announced a partnership with Polymarket<\/a> on Thursday that includes integrity monitoring, data sharing and the right to use intellectual property. But the bulk of the agreement doesn\u2019t cover that Polymarket.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s focused on Polymarket\u2019s yet to be fully launched<\/a> U.S. prediction market exchange, rather than Polymarket\u2019s separate crypto-based international exchange<\/a>, for which the company is widely known.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile MLB has touted the agreement as necessary to enhance integrity standards in prediction markets, giving it the right to \u201crestrict markets that present an integrity risk,\u201d this provision has limited meaning right now. Polymarket\u2019s much-larger international exchange is not subject to the same terms of the deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo get a sense of how tiny Polymarket\u2019s U.S. product is currently, its notional betting volume<\/a> in 2026 is about $700 million, compared with about $20 billion<\/a> for the company\u2019s international exchange. Kalshi<\/a>, a Polymarket competitor, recorded $3 billion in notional volume last week alone (Kalshi has one exchange, which is U.S.-based but also takes bets in some other countries<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\n\tNotional volume on Polymarket U.S. actually decreased from January to February.<\/p>\n

\n\tPolymarket\u2019s branding, which MLB will use, is the same for its U.S. and international units. The international exchange is where bets on military strikes are listed, which has drawn the ire of U.S. lawmakers. It also facilitated bets<\/a> on whether sex toys would be thrown on WNBA courts last year. And the product does not ask users to provide personal identification before placing bets\u2014a requirement for U.S.-based exchanges meant to guard against bad actors.<\/p>\n

\n\tU.S. authorities have no control of Polymarket\u2019s international exchange; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC<\/a>) only oversees the registered U.S. product, along with prediction market exchanges such as those owned by Kalshi and Crypto.com.<\/p>\n

\n\tPolymarket\u2019s international rulebook says people in the U.S. are not permitted to place bets, and the exchange blocks bettors recognized as having U.S. IP addresses, keeping it out of the purview of the CFTC. But Americans can easily circumvent the IP address ban through inexpensive VPNs that mask their location.<\/p>\n

\n\tMLB and the CFTC announced a memorandum of understanding Thursday \u201cto discuss, cooperate, and exchange information concerning issues of common interest, such as the integrity of professional baseball\u201d through \u201congoing, informal consultations, as well as periodic meetings, written requests as needed, and other practical arrangements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAgain, this doesn\u2019t apply to the more widely used international Polymarket product.<\/p>\n

\n\tPolymarket, which also has an exclusive licensing deal with MLS and a non-exclusive agreement with the NHL, did not respond to a request for comment. MLB declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\n\t(In January, Polymarket was among the sponsors of the Golden Globes, which is part-owned by Sportico parent Penske Media.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MLB announced a partnership with Polymarket on Thursday that includes integrity monitoring, data sharing and the right to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,65597,112095,462,52979,82],"class_list":["post-547637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cftc","tag-kalshi","tag-mlb","tag-polymarket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}