A set of agreements between Major League Baseball (MLB), Polymarket and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) highlights a shift already underway: prediction markets are starting to operate more like regulated financial products.
MLB has licensed its official data to Polymarket, giving the platform access to structured, verified inputs for event-based contracts. In parallel, the league signed a memorandum of understanding with the CFTC, creating a direct channel for sharing information related to market integrity.
Polymarket has also agreed to limit certain types of contracts that could be seen as easier to manipulate. These changes bring prediction markets closer to how traditional exchanges operate — with licensed data, defined product scope and regulatory oversight.
What It Means for Brokers
With official data feeds and clearer rules around contract design, event-based products can be packaged in a way that resembles other derivatives.
Instead of relying on loosely defined external sources, contracts can be built on licensed data — similar to how sports betting and financial derivatives use approved benchmarks.
New CFTC-compatible setups allow third parties to launch event-based products using existing exchange infrastructure rather than building their own. That includes execution, liquidity and compliance layers already handled by the underlying venue. Technology providers are also moving in.
Platforms from firms like NinjaTrader and Devexperts now allow brokers and fintechs to add event contracts to their existing systems or launch standalone products without rebuilding the stack. In practice, prediction markets are becoming something brokers can connect to, rather than something they have to build.
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Adoption Still Limited, but the Direction Is Clear
Large brokers have not yet widely integrated prediction markets into their core platforms. But the key elements are now in place: licensed data, clearer product structures and infrastructure that third parties can access.
For brokers, the question is becoming more practical — whether to connect to this layer and how to manage the associated risks — rather than whether the product category itself will persist.
