NFL will have three sportsbook partners, no prediction market deals for 2026

Look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do it.

The NFL has renewed its money-for-nothing relationship with the top two U.S. sportsbooks, to go along with a deal recently done with a relative newcomer to the industry.

For 2026, DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics will be the league's official sportsbook sponsors , via David Purdum of ESPN.

The companies will have access to official, real-time data (allowing for live betting) and the right to use league and team marks and logos. The NFL, in return, just sits back and cashes the checks.

For DraftKings and FanDuel, the sticking point had been the fee charged by Genius Sports for the data. That gap obviously has been bridged, either because the parties found a middle ground or the sportsbooks simply caved.

The league also will have a say as to the types of bets that are offered, intelligence sharing, advocacy efforts ( i.e. , getting more states to legalize sports betting), and responsible gambling initiatives.

Frankly, the most effective responsible gambling initiative would be to constantly remind gamblers that they can't win. (And that, if they somehow figure out a way to consistently win, they'll be cut off.)

None of those companies became so rich and powerful because the business loses money. The house wins. It always wins. And the advertising needs to better reflect that. Instead, it contains just enough of a whiff of the notion that you can, and will, be the exception to the rule. (Until you get cut off.)

That's where the NFL could do some real good for its fans who could develop a real addiction to gambling, if it ever chooses to do so. But the league has done a 180 from hating sports betting to loving it, because it's free money.

While the league has tried to justify the cash grab by claiming that the relationships are necessary to the effort to enforce gambling rules as to players, that could be accomplished without turning it into a major revenue stream.

Fortunately, the NFL has yet to try to turn prediction markets into a revenue stream. Purdum notes that the league will have no deals with Kalshi or Polymarket. Also, the sportsbook deals don't extend to the companies' burgeoning prediction-market operations.

It nevertheless feels inevitable that the league will flip the switch on the financial firehose that will come from allowing prediction markets to align with the NFL.

For now, the NFL will focus on funneling cash from sportsbooks. Despite the lingering risks to the game flowing from the legalization, and normalization, of sports betting. Before the Supreme Court opened the floodgates in 2018, the NFL banged the drum loudly about the potential impact of widespread sports betting on the perceived integrity of the game.

Once the NFL realized how much money could be made from cozying up to the sportsbooks, the league has conveniently forgotten about the things that it said about the potential pitfalls of sports betting — even though the risk still looms that fans will wonder whether otherwise normal incidents of the game suggest that the fix is in.