Prediction market users won’t be buying Kentucky Derby contracts on Kalshi and Polymarket this weekend.
Key Takeaways
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Polymarket complied with Churchill Downs’ request to pull its Kentucky Derby contracts.
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Kalshi hasn’t posted Kentucky Derby markets in the last two years.
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Industry leaders have warned prediction markets about illegal offerings.
Two of the most popular trading exchanges won’t be offering odds on the May 2 race, according to an ESPN report. Polymarket briefly posted a winner market for the annual Run for the Roses event, but was asked by Churchill Downs Inc., which owns the famed track of the Kentucky Derby, to take it down, a spokesperson from the horse racing company told ESPN.
“Polymarket complied,” Breck Thomas-Ross said to the media outlet.
Last May, Polymarket wasn’t operating in the U.S. and took in around $1.2 million in trades on the Kentucky Derby. The trading exchange returned to the market in December 2025.
Kalshi began offering sports event contracts in early 2025, but has yet to get involved in Kentucky Derby markets. DraftKings and FanDuel, two major U.S. sports betting and horse racing operators, also have prediction platforms in states where it doesn’t offer regulated wagering, but neither have markets listed.
The Kentucky Derby is a major wagering event in the U.S. Last year, the 151st running generated a record $234.4 million, easily surpassing the 2024 high of $210.7 million. The entire May week of racing at Churchill Downs produced a handle of over $470 million.
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Don’t do it
Churchill Downs CEO Bill Carstanjen said earlier this year that prediction markets didn’t have permission to offer horse racing markets.
“Pari-mutuel wagering on horse racing is conducted under the Interstate Horseracing Act, which is a federal umbrella statute that essentially gives us a series of rights — call them intellectual property rights — in our content,” Carstanjen said. “To take wagers across any forum, whether it be a sports wagering platform, another horse racing platform, or a prediction markets platform, you need our express consent. You can’t just do it without that. We haven’t agreed to provide our content to prediction markets.”
Tom Rooney, the president and CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, told ESPN that “there is a door that could be opened” for prediction markets to offer horse racing contracts if an industry stakeholder gives consent.
“We don’t have that yet,” Rooney said.
Industry concerns
Prediction markets are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which complicates getting that restriction lifted. State gaming commissions currently don’t have jurisdiction over what trading exchanges offer.
In other prediction market news, more than a dozen states are battling prediction market companies like Kalshi and Polymarket in court over licensing and regulation of sports event contracts.
Rooney said he told the CFTC earlier this year that prediction market platforms offering horse racing contracts would be illegal. Horse racing is operated, regulated, and taxed differently from sports betting. If prediction markets offered those contracts, that could disrupt the money that flows directly to the industry.
“I think that the prediction market is a real threat to the horse-racing industry unless we handle it correctly,” Dennis Drazin, the chairman and CEO of Darby Development, said in March at the National HBPA Conference.
“My recommendation is that those of us who want to participate, we head to the federal court and assert our rights under the Interstate Horseracing Act. But the industry is going to have to make some decisions."
