Sportsbook partners may advertise only an “approved product” during games, the league says — no general advertising, no prediction markets. The list of approved products has never been published, and the league has not said who decides what goes on it.
The NFL’s rule for its sportsbook partners is no longer a matter of inference. Tim Schlittner, the league’s director of communications, told Gambling Insider this month that “all prediction market advertising during NFL games is prohibited,” and that the prohibition “extends to in-stadium signage, club sponsorships, and player endorsements.”
He also set out what the sportsbooks licensed by the league may do. “During NFL games, sportsbook partners must advertise one of their approved products,” Schlittner said. “They cannot do general advertising. They cannot advertise prediction markets.”
That goes further than a ban on prediction markets. A permitted company cannot advertise itself either — only a product the league has approved.
It is enforced by contract, not the rulebook. Advertising in NFL games requires official league data, distributed exclusively by Genius Sports, and requires agreement to the league’s integrity terms.
“To advertise in our game, you also have to have official data, because you have to agree to our integrity requirements,” Renie Anderson, the NFL’s executive vice president and chief revenue officer, told ESPN when the partnerships were announced.
None of that is published. There is no rulebook a campaign can be checked against, nor a register of approved products.
What the License Leaves Out
On Aug. 27, the NFL announced commercial agreements with DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics, granting official league data, in-game advertising rights, and use of league marks. All three also run prediction markets — event-contract platforms on which customers trade on sporting outcomes, including where sportsbooks are unlicensed.
The league’s announcement does not mention those products. That the rights stop short of them comes from the reporting: ESPN said the data and intellectual property do not transfer, and NBC Sports reported the deals “don’t extend” to the partners’ prediction markets.
None of the excluded products is marginal. On Aug. 10, Railbird Exchange — which DraftKings operates as DKeX — self-certified nine categories of football event contract with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
CEO Jason Robins told the second-quarter earnings call that annualized volume grew “nearly 5x from $2.3 billion to $11 billion” between April and July; the company’s slides split the July figure into roughly $3.6 billion in consumer volume and $7.4 billion from market makers.
FanDuel Predicts launched with CME Group on Dec. 22 in five states and now offers financial contracts in all 50, by the company’s own account. Fanatics Markets is live in 22 states and four U.S. territories.
The rule matches the league’s regulatory posture. In July, it told the CFTC that proposed rules for event contracts “fall significantly short of protecting the integrity of sporting events.”
This month, chief compliance officer Sabrina Perel wrote to the exchanges to say contracts it objects to were still listed.
All three keep the excluded product out of the same places, and FanDuel publishes the rule. It offers sports and entertainment contracts only “in states where FanDuel does not offer sports betting”, and said at launch it “will cease offering sports event contracts in those states” as betting is legalized.
DraftKings and Fanatics draw the line in the same place. Geography is dictated largely by regulation; what the three say in NFL air is not.
DraftKings and Fanatics have each described what they do in NFL programming. FanDuel says less and names one product.
A FanDuel spokesperson told Gambling Insider in an email: “We’re proud to continue our relationship with the NFL and will use the partnership as an opportunity to let customers know why this is the most rewarding season ever on FanDuel Sportsbook.”
That is the answer Schlittner’s rule calls for and nothing beyond it: not FanDuel Predicts, not the online casino FanDuel runs in five states, not the company as a whole.
DraftKings Draws the Line by the Calendar
Stephen Miraglia, DraftKings’ senior director of communications, told Gambling Insider the league “has made clear” that creative airing during NFL programming must comply with guidelines it provides, and that what the company runs in NFL windows “has received approval from the NFL.”
The test case is its own brand campaign. “Take Your Game Anywhere” launched Aug. 31 on the premise that DraftKings is available everywhere — a claim its agency’s creative director, Chris Mendez of Translation, attributed to the combination: “Through their sportsbook and predictions offering, DraftKings is now available in all 50 states.”
DraftKings’ own release footnotes it more narrowly: “Nationwide based on Sportsbook, Predictions, and/or Free-to-Play Sports Contest availability. Varies by State.”
Either way, the claim holds only if the excluded product is added to the licensed one. Outside NFL windows, it can air; inside them, Miraglia said, “it’s not going to get aired.”
The league was not consulted before the state-specific Predictions campaign that ran in California, Texas, Georgia, and Florida from Aug. 25 — “why would they be?” Miraglia said — because it was never meant for NFL broadcasts. Those are the four largest states where the DraftKings sportsbook cannot legally operate.
DraftKings’ own availability page sets that division out. It sells sports-event contracts in the 18 states where it has no online sportsbook, runs the sportsbook in 27 more, and offers only free-to-play contests in the remaining 5. No state appears on two lists.
Fanatics Draws It by the Map
Kevin Hennessy, Fanatics’ vice president of communications, told Gambling Insider the NFL partnership “does not cover Fanatics Markets,” and that “Fanatics Markets creative does not run in NFL programming.”
Fanatics Markets is kept apart geographically, too: it “is not available in a state where Fanatics holds a gaming license to operate legal sports betting and/or legal online casino.”
Fanatics goes further than the shared rule. Fanatics Markets is absent from its licensed states altogether, not merely its sports contracts, and Fanatics makes no claim that depends on adding sportsbook and prediction market together.
Hennessy also described an entitlement wider than the sportsbook. “Fanatics is a global sports platform that has a wide-ranging partnership with the NFL that includes team merchandise, collectibles, sportsbook, and online casino, so we are able to advertise more than just sportsbook in line with the NFL’s guidance,” he said.
“That is why our major campaign called ‘Town Hall’ is focused on the Fanatics app and FanCash.”
That is consistent with the public record: one name covers two separate businesses. Fanatics Commerce sells merchandise and lists the NFL among its partners. It was already the league’s official e-commerce partner when, in April, the NFL made it the exclusive on-site retail partner for its marquee events.
Fanatics Betting & Gaming is a separate unit under its own chief executive, and its NFL partnership dates only from Aug. 27. On Sept. 2, it brought sportsbook, casino, and Markets into one app, Fanatics Sports & Casino, while keeping the standalone apps.
The Number the Trade Body Does Not Break Down
The American Gaming Association, the casino industry’s trade body and an active opponent of event contracts, publishes figures showing that advertising it labels “prediction market” took 57% of U.S. digital sports-betting ad impressions through July, against sportsbooks’ 43%, alongside nearly $200 million in digital spend. The data is Pathmatics by Sensor Tower, analyzed by the association.
What the published material never says is which brands sit inside that 57%. Where the AGA names companies, it names the exchanges: its Sept. 4 release on NFL wagering identifies Kalshi and Polymarket, and calls prediction markets “backdoor sports betting.”
The 57% also includes operator-run products — DraftKings Predictions, FanDuel Predicts, and Fanatics Markets, among them, according to a person familiar with the methodology.
All three have since quit the AGA, and did so over prediction markets: DraftKings and FanDuel’s resignations were reported on Nov. 18, and Fanatics days after launching Markets, Gambling Insider reported.
So the association’s headline statistic counts, without naming them, the products of the three companies that left. No breakdown has been published.
What the League Has Not Said
The rule is clear. What it applies to is not. It has not said how a product is approved or who within the league decides. Every partner’s compliance depends on that list, and it is not public.
It has not said whether the prohibited-advertising list reported in January — placing prediction markets alongside tobacco, pornography, and firearms — exists in the form described. As Gambling Insider noted at the time, that list is not public either.
And it has not said what happens at the edges, where a licensee’s own products meet — the point at which each company has had to make its own judgment. DraftKings and Fanatics have now made theirs in public, by the calendar and by the map.
The NFL has stated the rule. It has not published the list the rule depends on, or said who decides what goes on it. Everything else on the record comes from the three companies it licenses.
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