States Review Sportsbook Draft Bets, But Not Kalshi’s 598,464 Contracts on Cardinals’ Pick

Kalshi customers traded more contracts on Jeremiyah Love going third in the NFL draft than on any other player, most of them on draft day. Arizona and Massachusetts are reviewing betting tied to the Ryan Gold case at the sportsbooks they license, but no regulator has publicly confirmed an examination of prediction market trading on the draft.

Customers of Kalshi, the federally regulated prediction market, traded 598,464 contracts on Jeremiyah Love being the third pick in the 2026 NFL draft, more than on any other player, according to Kalshi’s public market data. Nearly three-quarters of that contract volume came on April 23, the night the Arizona Cardinals took Love third.

Gaming regulators in Arizona and Massachusetts are reviewing betting at the sportsbooks they license in connection with Ryan Gold, the suspended Cardinals scouting director whom the NFL accused of sharing the team’s draft plans.

Kalshi and Polymarket, the other prediction market that listed the pick, are not licensed by those state gaming regulators, and no regulator has said publicly that it is examining their draft trading.

The NFL told the Supreme Court on Oct. 8 that states should be allowed to regulate such markets. Meanwhile, no decision has been announced on Gold’s appeal of his suspension.

How Kalshi’s NFL Draft Prediction Market Worked

Kalshi’s “Pro Football #3 Overall Pick” market listed a separate contract on each of 38 players. A contract paid $1 if its player went third and nothing otherwise, so its price in cents can be interpreted as the market-implied probability of that player being selected. A 24-cent price corresponds to an implied probability of approximately 24%, although market prices do not establish the actual likelihood of an outcome.

Across the 38 players, 2.3 million contracts traded. Love’s 598,464 were 26% of them, ahead of Arvell Reese at 528,023. Gambling Insider reviewed all 11,157 trades in the Love contract. Most contracts changed hands for well under $1, so the sum of reported transaction prices multiplied by contract quantities was approximately $231,000, according to Gambling Insider’s analysis.

On Polymarket, the other prediction market that listed the pick, Love’s contract drew $36,143 of the $141,295 traded across all players in its market on the third pick, or 26%. Kalshi’s estimated transaction value was more than six times Polymarket’s reported dollar volume, although the figures should only be treated as directly comparable if both platforms calculate trading volume on the same basis.

Most of the Trading Came in the Final Four Days

Trading was thin for most of the market’s three months: no day before April 20 saw more than 10,000 Love contracts traded.

• From March 31 through Sunday, April 19, Love’s contract averaged 11 cents, about an 11% market-implied probability.
• It closed at 21 cents on Monday, April 20, 24 cents on April 21 and 32 cents on April 22.
• On draft day it traded mostly between 31 and 46 cents through the afternoon.

Of all Love contracts, 88% traded from April 20 to April 23 and 72% on draft day. That includes 9% traded after the pick was known, at prices near 99 cents. Half of all Love contracts traded on draft day before 8 p.m. ET.

The concentration of volume near the draft shows how sharply trading activity increased as the outcome approached. It does not, by itself, indicate that traders had advance knowledge of the selection.

https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/196860/kalshi-polymarket-nfl-draft-jeremiyah-love-regulators