DraftKings Files Six CFTC Contracts for DKeX — Its In-House Prediction Market Exchange Goes Live Today
DraftKings filings with CFTC bring sports event contracts to federal exchange platform DKeX launched by company’s DCM licensed subsidiary Railbird Exchange, a doing business as (d/b/a) DKeX and now registered as a Designated Contract Market (DCM).
The short version:
- Six event contract templates were filed by the subsidiary of DraftKings, Railbird Exchange (d/b/a DKeX), a CFTC Designated Contract Market, on May 22, 2026 with the CFTC. These contracts are listed on DKeX as of today, May 27, 2026.
• GAMEWIN: the game winner for a specified game;
• GAMESPREAD: the spread of a specified game (i.e. the margin by which one team is expected to win over another team);
• GAMEPROPERTY: property of a specified game (e.g. score, total score, touchdown passes, etc. for a specified team or teams in a specified game);
• ENTITYSTAT: a statistic or score for a specified entity (e.g. a player, team, team in a league, etc.) over a specified time period (e.g. season, game, etc.);
• ENTITYOUTPERFORM: another specified entity (e.g. another player, team, etc.) - As DraftKings’ DCM, DKeX is registered with the CFTC, meaning it doesn’t require a host of state sportsbook licenses to issue federally regulated sports event contracts as part of its DKeX platform and exchange.
- Each of the contracts is a binary event contract with a $1.00 notional amount; a $0.01 minimum tick size; are open 24/7; and are subject to position accountability limits of up to 125,000 contracts per market.
• The filing utilizes a templates-based system covering Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Golf, MMA, Motor Sports, Soccer and Tennis and corresponding game formats including Regular Season and Postseason for all major sports.
• DKeX will be integrated into the DraftKings Super App that is launching soon. The App will enable users to access the company’s sportsbook, iGaming offerings, account funding via DraftKings’ Horse Racing offerings and all other products currently offered in DraftKings’ Event Contracts.
In 2025, DraftKings acquired the parent of the newly named DKeX, Railbird Exchange. It was then that the operator gained access to a federally licensed DCM. Until today, however, customers of the operator have participated in the operator’s sports prediction product, DraftKings Predictions, that routed customers to settle event contracts listed on the CME Group’s exchange as well as on the Crypto.com-owned and operated crypto derivatives exchange, Crypto Derivatives Exchange (Crypto DEX).
This is also worth noting. DKeX filed 6 different types of contract templates for 6 different types of event contracts to be listed and traded for all relevant end dates for all teams, in all markets, and all relevant competitions and time periods etc. All six families of contracts will be listed on DKeX: GAMEWIN contracts for the winning of games, the GAMESPREAD contracts for the spread by which games are won or lost, the GAMEPROPERTY contracts for player and team property type contracts, ENTITYSTAT contracts for contracts based upon specific statistics for individual entities and teams, ENTITYOUTPERFORM contracts for contracts that allow for the comparison of the performance of one team or entity against another, and the ENTITYACHIEVE contracts for contracts in which the achievements of a team or entity are contracted for. As was mentioned above, each of these six families of sports contracts have specific rules for each of the different popular sports in which they are to be offered that would need to be taken into account when determining in what circumstances the contracts would be deemed to have been “fully satisfied” and in what circumstances any open contracts would be “canceled out” in order to limit potential exposure.
Another aspect of DKeX’s filing of federally regulated sports event contract templates is the competitive advantage it will provide DraftKings in current and proposed state sportsbook regulations. As the biggest state in the country, California is currently blocking online sports wagers, but DraftKings will be able to offer federally regulated sports event contracts in the company is already offering in 38 states via DraftKings Predictions event contracts. DKeX will be able to list the contracts in the 38 states where DraftKings can already offer the contracts as part of its sportsbook product, thereby allowing the company to capture every dollar of margin on every trade of the contracts in the absence of a state sportsbook license. In contrast, rival Flutter is currently using third-party prediction market exchanges to employ it as a market maker on the contracts that DraftKings is offering as part of its sportsbook product in 38 states, and the company would have to pay an exchange fee on every trade that it would not have to pay as the operator of a Designated Contract Market.
This type of offering is already available to customers of FanDuel Predicts – FanDuel’s take on prediction markets – which is partnered with CME Group to offer sports prediction contracts for all 50 states. However, Flutter Entertainment – the parent of the main rival to DraftKings in the United States – has, to date, confined its activities in this space to serving as a market maker for various third-party platforms, and we have recently highlighted the potential perils for such an operator in a note titled The Walls Are Closing In: 17 States, a Congressional Probe, and 400+ Suspicious Trades.
It is also important to note that the prediction market framework that DraftKings is operating under is a federal framework. DraftKings is therefore locked into this framework regardless of what happens with federal legislation currently pending that would either ban or restrict the ability to offer event contracts. The only way that DraftKings would no longer be able to offer contracts on DKeX would be for the CFTC to revoke the DCM license of the subsidiary’s DCM license.
Sources
• Finance Magnates — DraftKings Moves Deeper Into Prediction Markets With DKeX CFTC Filings (May 27, 2026) — https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/draftkings-moves-deeper-into-pred
• DeFi Rate — DraftKings Railbird Exchange Files First Sports Prediction Market Contracts (May 26, 2026) — https://defirate.com/news/draftkings-railbird-exchange-files-first-sports-prediction-market-contracts/
• Gambling Insider — DraftKings Self-Certifies Sports Event Contracts for New DKeX Platform (May 27, 2026) — https://www.gamblinginsider.com/news/163174/draftkings-self-certifies-sports-event
• Yahoo Finance / Deadspin — DraftKings Files for Prediction Products with CFTC (May 27, 2026) — https://deadspin.com/prediction-markets/legal-news/draftkings-exchange-prepares-to-offer-pm
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