The college football world was up in arms on Wednesday over a report that prediction market Kalshi would open up props allowing users to trade contracts and bet on college athletes entering the NCAA transfer portal.
According to ingame.com, the prediction market submitted a filing with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission that stated contracts would be posted based on “Will <player> <enter/withdraw from> the transfer portal in <time period>?”
The filing said the trades would happen as early as Wednesday, December 17.
The contract will be settled based on “public announcements” including players’ social media, as well as school athletic departments and major recruiting services or sports media.
This coming at a time NCAA is seeking to curtail player prop betting.
— InGame (@InGameHQ) December 17, 2025
Immediately after the news broke, a flood of reactions flowed through social media in response to the proposal. And they were universally negative from across the college football world. Several media members expressed severe concerns that the props could be exploited, leading to widespread corruption and insider trading across the sport.
https://t.co/ksn8lBoDTX pic.twitter.com/sO2kyQcoK5
— Josh Pate (@JoshPateCFB) December 18, 2025
The CFTC needs to deny this certification ASAP. This is a terrible idea and will be rife with manipulation. The fluid nature and lack of sophistication of the @TransferPortal create a perfect setup for insider betting, exploitation, and outright corruption. https://t.co/v5cnrQFlrb
— Shannon Terry (@ShannonTerry) December 18, 2025
this is a terrible idea and I hope that somebody with some sense stops it https://t.co/DmYYxWAzDb
— Matt Brown (@MattBrownEP) December 17, 2025
Well this seems like a great shady way to boost a guy’s NIL deal. Bet on him to enter the portal before he announces it, then give him the winnings. https://t.co/3l9PWdi8fa
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 17, 2025
This is so obviously a terrible idea that I am a little surprised it’s taken someone this long to push it. Real catastrophic stuff if it’s allowed to proceed https://t.co/q6p2csNOQN
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) December 18, 2025
You know it won’t be long before athletes are getting cash under the table to influence their decisions on entering the transfer portal. This has the potential to get very messy. https://t.co/i9A2tdbZJF
— Darren Heitner (@heitner) December 17, 2025
This might be the worst decision in history https://t.co/6HteaMhebS
— Shehan Jeyarajah (@ShehanJeyarajah) December 17, 2025
After the backlash reached a fever pitch and went viral across college sports, Kalshi issued a statement that said they are not planning to go live with transfer portal markets at this time, via ESPN’s David Purdum.
Statement from prediction market Kalshi on offering markets on the transfer portal: “We certify markets all the time that we do not end up listing; despite our competitors having these markets live, we have no immediate plans to list these contracts.”
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) December 18, 2025
“We certify markets all the time that we do not end up listing; despite our competitors having these markets live, we have no immediate plans to list these contracts,” Kalshi’s statement said.
Given the severe reaction from almost everybody in the college football world, it would be a shock to see Kalshi or Polymarket move ahead with something like this that could be so easily manipulated. According to the filing, even a player posting that they were entering the portal and then going back could be classified as a decisive entry.
The NFL has already come out strongly against prediction markets because of their susceptibility to manipulation and the unregulated nature of so many props. This furor over the transfer portal is only going to intensify those concerns from across the sports world as prediction markets rise in influence.
About Matt Yoder