The NBA opens tonight with four bet types pulled from its sportsbook partners. Prediction markets were never asked, and the same contracts are still listed.
What the memo removes, and why now
The timing is not subtle. On Wednesday, October 14, Shane Hennen, a 41-year-old Las Vegas gambler, pleaded guilty in federal court in Philadelphia to bribery, wire fraud and money laundering charges across two cases: a point-shaving scheme that reached Chinese Basketball Association and NCAA games from September 2022, and the Jontay Porter case, in which prosecutors say Hennen received nonpublic information that Porter would manipulate his performance so bettors could win under player props. Hennen faces a combined maximum of 125 years and is due to be sentenced on February 25, 2027. Two days later, ESPN's Shams Charania and David Purdum reported the league's memo.
The four new restrictions each close a door the Porter and Terry Rozier cases walked through. Same-player under parlays let a bettor multiply a single piece of inside information across points, rebounds and assists in one ticket. Opening-tip bets depend on one player's action with no scoring consequence. Missed-shot bets reward a player for doing nothing. Unders on players expected to see fewer than 12 minutes are the cheapest market in basketball to corrupt, because a bench player who leaves early costs his team nothing and his co-conspirators little. The league had already pulled bets on missed free throws, fouls and turnovers, and on players on 10-day or two-way contracts, in earlier seasons. Scott Kaufman-Ross, the NBA's executive vice president for gaming and new business ventures, told ESPN the rules struck "the right balance" between removing problematic bets and "ensuring that we don't just move activity into the illegal market." A FanDuel spokesperson said the company was "unwavering in our commitment to building a legal and regulated market that roots out abuses."
| Bet type | NBA sportsbook partners (from October 16 memo) | Kalshi | Polymarket US |
|---|---|---|---|
| Same-player under parlays or combos | Removed | No NBA under combos listed on October 16; combos across games offered | $10 three-leg LeBron James under combo paying $14.19 listed on October 16 |
| Opening-tip winner | Removed | No published rule | No published rule |
| Player misses a specific shot | Removed | No published rule; CFTC's June 2026 proposal would bar "discrete-action" contracts | Same |
| Unders on players expected under 12 minutes | Removed | No published rule | No published rule |
| Points, rebounds, assists, threes | Offered | Offered; new "Covered" template certified October 16 | Offered |
| Missed free throws, fouls, turnovers | Removed in earlier seasons | Not listed in public catalogue | Not listed in public catalogue |
The venues the memo does not reach
Sportsbook props are licensed by states and governed by data and marketing deals with the league. Event contracts are self-certified with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission by a designated contract market, and the league has no deal with any of them. The NBA's one formal move on that side was a letter from Dan Spillane, its executive vice president and assistant general counsel, to the CFTC on April 30, 2026, asking the agency to raise the minimum age for sports contracts to 21, to ban player props "in the near term" while it wrote restrictions, to limit statistics a single participant could manipulate, to prohibit contracts on officiating, injuries, discipline, transactions and G League games, to require platforms to report suspicious trading to the league, and to block people associated with the league from trading. None of that is in force. Kaufman-Ross acknowledged on October 16 that enforcing the new limits on prediction markets would be challenging without formal agreements, and the league has not signed a memorandum of understanding with the CFTC.
What the exchanges have done instead is file. On October 14, DraftKings' exchange certified a "Covered" NBA player-prop contract template with the CFTC, with a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander instance for Christmas Day. On October 16, the day of the memo, Kalshi certified its own version of the same template, with a first instance on Gilgeous-Alexander for Nuggets at Thunder on October 22, and Rothera, the exchange backed by Robinhood and Susquehanna, certified NBA game winner, spread and team-total contracts. Kalshi's public NBA catalogue, as described in Sports Illustrated's October 19 review, covers points, assists, rebounds, three-pointers, double-doubles and triple-doubles, plus combos that can span games; its 2027 championship market carried more than $29 million in volume by that date and its Stephen Curry next-team market about $6.5 million. The filings do not mention minutes thresholds, tip-off markets or same-player combos one way or the other.
The federal rulebook that would apply, if it were final
The exchanges are not operating in a vacuum. The CFTC's June 10, 2026 proposal on sports event contracts drew its own line through the same territory as the NBA memo, from the other direction. It said contracts on game winners, final scores, point differentials and individual statistics were "unlikely to raise the particular manipulation, settlement ambiguity and information leakage issues" that would make them contrary to the public interest, and it named five categories that likely were: player injury contracts, officiating outcome contracts, "discrete-action contracts involving specific participants" such as a specific shot by a specific player, physical altercation contracts, and contracts on pre-collegiate sports. That proposal has not been finalised. On October 9 the agency added two more rules on the definition of a swap, and the first of them, the interim final rule excluding licensed casino and sportsbook bets, took effect on its Federal Register publication on October 19; comments on it and on the companion proposal to write event contracts into the swap definition are due November 18.
Put the two documents side by side and the overlap is narrow. Both would stop a contract on whether a player misses a particular shot. Neither the June proposal nor any CFTC rule says anything about stacking unders on one player, about tip-off markets, or about a 12-minute floor; individual-statistic contracts are expressly in the permitted column. A sportsbook that offered the LeBron combo on October 20 would be breaching a league instruction. An exchange that offers it is breaching nothing that exists.
What the exchanges have adopted on their own
The one area where the exchanges moved first is harassment rather than fixing. On October 13 Kalshi certified Rule 5.17(dd), effective October 27, making abuse or threats directed at athletes a rule violation on its platform, and on October 14 it announced a partnership with Signify Group and joined the Bad Actor Program that Signify runs with IC360. The NBA's own integrity package, announced alongside the memo, includes an upgraded monitoring platform, training led by Charles Tillman, and a partnership with Social Protect for threatening messages. On market design, however, there is no exchange equivalent of the memo. Kalshi showed no NBA under combos on October 16, which may reflect a listing decision rather than a rule, and nothing in its rulebook or its October 16 filing commits it to keep them off. Polymarket US had the LeBron combo up. DraftKings, which operates both a sportsbook bound by the memo and an exchange that is not, has not said whether its exchange will mirror the sportsbook list; its October 14 filing certifies the player-stat template without any such limit.
What to watch from tonight
Three things will show within days whether the gap matters. First, whether any exchange lists unders on deep-bench players for Celtics at Pistons at 3 p.m. ET, 76ers at Knicks at 7 p.m. or Thunder at Spurs at 9:30 p.m.; the sportsbook partners cannot. Second, whether DraftKings Predictions and Kalshi list same-player under combos once the "Covered" templates go live on October 22. Third, whether the NBA converts its April letter into something the CFTC can act on before the proposal is finalised; the agency's open comment window closes November 18, and a league filing in it would be the first formal step toward the "formal agreements" Kaufman-Ross says enforcement needs. Until then, the integrity rule that governs an NBA under bet depends on which app it was placed in.
Method and limits
The list of removed bet types is from ESPN's October 16 report of the NBA memo, as summarised by Covers and LegalSportsBetting; we have not seen the memo itself. The NBA executive and FanDuel quotations are as reported by ESPN and Covers. Venue listings for October 16 are from iGaming Business's roundup of that evening; we have not tested either app on October 20 and listings change daily. The CFTC filings are from the Commission's industry filings pages via Prediction Market Pulse's October 19 summary; the "Covered" contract PDFs were not reviewed. The June 2026 CFTC proposal is described from InGame's analysis; the October 9 rules from the Federal Register. The Hennen plea details are from Covers. Nothing here is legal, financial or betting advice.
Frequently asked questions
Which NBA bets did sportsbooks stop offering for 2026-27?
Under an NBA memo reported by ESPN on October 16, 2026, partner sportsbooks including FanDuel and DraftKings no longer offer parlays that combine under bets on the same player, bets on which team wins the opening tip, bets on a player missing a specific shot, and under bets on players expected to play fewer than 12 minutes. Earlier seasons had already removed bets on missed free throws, fouls, turnovers and on 10-day or two-way players.
Do the NBA's new betting limits apply to Kalshi and Polymarket?
No. The memo went to the league's licensed sportsbook partners. The NBA has no partnership with Kalshi or Polymarket, has no formal agreement with the CFTC, and league executive Scott Kaufman-Ross has said enforcing limits on prediction markets would be challenging without one. As of October 16, Polymarket US still listed a three-leg LeBron James under combo, while Kalshi showed no NBA under combos.
Can you trade NBA player props on prediction markets?
Yes. Kalshi lists points, rebounds, assists, three-pointers and double-double contracts and lets users combine them across games; it certified a new NBA player-stat contract template with the CFTC on October 16, 2026, with a first instance on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for Nuggets-Thunder on October 22. DraftKings Predictions certified a matching template on October 14. The CFTC's June 2026 proposal would allow individual-statistic contracts and bar injury, officiating and specific-shot contracts.
Why did the NBA act now?
The memo came two days after Shane Hennen pleaded guilty in Philadelphia federal court on October 14, 2026 to bribery, wire fraud and money laundering charges tied to NBA, Chinese league and college basketball fixing, including nonpublic information that Jontay Porter would underperform so bettors could win under player props. The NBA says the changes strike the right balance between removing exploitable markets and not pushing activity to illegal books.
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Sources
- ESPN, NBA tells sportsbooks to stop certain bets, restrict parlays, 16 October 2026.
- Covers, NBA reportedly bans certain bet types ahead of new season, 16 October 2026, for the four bet types, the Kaufman-Ross and FanDuel quotations and the prediction market exclusion.
- LegalSportsBetting, NBA, sportsbooks ban first basket, low-minute unders and more, 16 October 2026, for the earlier-season restrictions.
- Covers, Shane Hennen pleads guilty in basketball betting cases, 15 October 2026.
- iGaming Business, Prediction market roundup, 16 October 2026, for the Polymarket US combo, the Kalshi listing and the NBA's lack of a CFTC memorandum.
- Covers, NBA calls for prediction market regulatory framework in letter to CFTC, 1 May 2026.
- Prediction Market Pulse, PMP Weekly, 19 October 2026, for the DraftKings, Kalshi and Rothera certifications, Rule 5.17(dd) and the Signify partnership; CFTC filing 65289 for Kalshi's Covered NBA template.
- Sports Illustrated, Kalshi NBA markets 2026-27, 19 October 2026, for the catalogue and volume figures.
- InGame, CFTC says sports event contracts involve gaming but that's fine, for the June 2026 proposal's permitted and prohibited categories.
- Federal Register, Further definition of "swap" to exclude casino-style gambling products, 91 FR 65969, 19 October 2026.
- NBC Washington, NBA opening night schedule, for the October 20 games and tip times.
18+ only. This page reports a league instruction, court filings and public exchange listings. It is not legal, financial or betting advice. If gambling stops being fun, help is available at 1-800-GAMBLER.