NCAA president Charlie Baker said the governing body “vehemently” opposes prediction markets having college sports offerings.

On Tuesday, Kalshi, the online prediction site, filed to certify a market for college athlete transfers. If offered, users across the world could bet on if a college athlete would enter the transfer portal.

It doesn’t take much thought to see how much of a disaster that could be. Baker realizes that. And that’s why he said Thursday that the NCAA was very much against the possibility.

“The NCAA vehemently opposes college sports prediction markets,” Baker wrote. “It is already bad enough that student-athletes face harassment and abuse for lost bets on game performance, and now Kalshi wants to offer bets on their transfer decisions and status — this is absolutely unacceptable and would place even greater pressure on student athletes while threatening competition integrity and recruiting process. Their decisions and future should not be gambled with, especially in an unregulated marketplace that does not follow any rules of legitimate sports betting operators.”

In a statement Wednesday night, Kalshi said that it had no “immediate” plans to offer contracts on athletes entering the transfer portal. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are not subject to the same rules as licensed sportsbooks are in states across the country. 

The lack of oversight in college athletics — and the number of schools willing to attempt to skirt the few rules that are currently in place — has led to myriad coaches ruing the chaos of the college football offseason so far. For example, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said this week that players up and down his roster are receiving calls about potential transfers — even if they have not expressed interest in entering the transfer portal.

If Kalshi offered a transfer market on any given athlete, what would stop a booster from heavily betting “yes” and then attempting to persuade that athlete to transfer with a percentage of winnings? Or what would even stop the athlete or a friend of the athlete with inside information from profiting off a potential transfer?

NCAA betting rules have already been a source of debate in 2025 after schools voted to overturn a proposal that would have allowed athletes and staff to bet on professional sports. Current guidelines prevent betting on pro sports by college athletes and staff, but a proposal would have lifted that rule.

The NCAA has consistently advocated against prop bets for college athletes as it has been busy penalizing players it found to have bet on their own games. 

Just last week, the NCAA said that a former men’s basketball player at San Francisco had given a player at another school information for the other player to place prop bets on the San Francisco player’s performance. Former players at Eastern Michigan, Temple Fresno State, New Orleans and other schools have been found to have committed similar transgressions.