NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo has joined prediction market giant Kalshi as a shareholder. On February 6, the Milwaukee Bucks forward took to X to announce the partnership. “We all on Kalshi now,” Antetokounmpo said in the post, which had garnered close to 26 million views and 11,000 likes by Monday morning.
With the deal, Antetokounmpo becomes the first NBA player to take an ownership interest in the company. As part of the agreement, Antetokounmpo will participate in the firm’s marketing and live events.
Kalshi has been riding high in the new year, recently crossing $100 billion in annualized trading volume, according to the press release. Antetokounmpo invested in Kalshi through his company, Ante Inc., which also manages his interests in Improbable Media and his venture fund, BYL Venture. “I like to win,” Antetokounmpo said about the deal. “It’s clear to me Kalshi is going to be a winner, and I’m excited to be getting involved.”
Star Becomes Shareholder Alongside Top Venture Firms
As a shareholder in Kalshi, Antetokounmpo joins a list of high-profile investors that includes Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Coinbase Ventures. This “cap table,” a term that describes a company’s owners and how much of the business each holds, now has one of the most recognizable names in global sports on its roster.
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour described the NBA champion as a “legend” and said “he’s exactly the type of long-term partner” the brand wants to align with as it continues to scale its regulated trading platform. The two-time MVP expressed his personal interest in the company, saying, “I love the Kalshi markets and have been checking them often recently.”
While Kalshi positioned the move as both an investment and a brand partnership, with Antetokounmpo being involved in branded experiences beyond the app, it also made clear that guardrails are in place to ensure the partnership doesn’t cross the line into prohibited activity.
“As an active player in the NBA, Antetokounmpo will be forbidden from trading on markets related to the NBA,” the company said in the press release, citing its terms that “ban insider trading and market manipulation.”
Kalshi has found itself at the center of the debate over insider trading on prediction markets, with Mansour recently outlining on social media the steps the company is taking to protect its markets from manipulation.
In a post on X praising the star, Mansour said, “People love Giannis because he’s real and he earned it the hard way…He comes from nothing, stays humble, chooses loyalty over shortcuts, and plays with visible joy. Most importantly: he wins.”
Critics Cite Conflict of Interest
The reaction to the Kalshi-Antetokounmpo deal was swift on X, with many saying it should be illegal for an active NBA player to have an ownership stake in what they described as a gambling company. It didn’t help that the announcement came just a day after the NBA’s trade deadline on Thursday, February 5.
Leading up to the deadline, there had been intense speculation about Antetokounmpo being traded. Given the nature of Kalshi and prediction markets in general, these rumors were something people could bet on by trading contracts on the app, including one about whether Antetokounmpo “would be traded before Thursday’s trade deadline.”
For many fans, the optics were just bad, and they openly wondered about the fairness of a player holding equity in a company that could potentially profit from rumors or news about his own career moves.
Critics have pointed to markets where Kalshi users traded over $23 million on whether he would stay in Milwaukee or leave for another team like Chicago, with some alleging the rumors were manufactured to drive trading volume before he eventually stayed with the Bucks.
Of course, there are two sides to every story, and the counterargument is that ownership isn’t the same thing as trading on the platform, and the terms make it explicit that players can’t participate in their own sports markets.
However, if X posts are any indication of public sentiment, few were convinced, with some users calling for the FBI to investigate him and others lamenting that sports have been compromised by gambling. The general consensus seems to be that there is a conflict of interest here.
And that’s what makes the reputational risk real for the NBA and Antetokounmpo at a time when a series of recent betting scandals have led many fans to question the league’s integrity. Even if Kalshi’s rules prohibit direct participation, just having Antetokounmpo as a shareholder will continue to raise eyebrows as the NBA and other sports leagues battle the perception that betting incentives influence how games are played and officiated.
For its part, the NFL has taken a much harder line on players taking an ownership stake in prediction markets. In an email to NBC Sports Pro Football Talk, chief NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy confirmed that the league has explicitly banned its players from holding an ownership interest in prediction markets like Kalshi, saying, ”NFL players may not own a stake.”
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NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo has joined prediction market giant Kalshi as a shareholder. On February 6, the Milwaukee Bucks forward took to X to announce the partnership. “We all on Kalshi now,” Antetokounmpo said in the post, which had garnered close to 26 million views and 11,000 likes by Monday morning. With the deal, Antetokounmpo
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