A Spanish soccer team competing in La Liga, the country’s top division, allegedly wagered $1 million against itself in a match this season at Kalshi.
A report on the financial news site Semafor said the unnamed club won the match in question 1-0. They placed the bet at Kalshi through Game Point Capital, a company that helps sports organizations manage financial risks.
“We want to see how prediction markets would handle this, and it was a good test case — a large and binary outcome,” Game Point Capital CEO Will Hall said in an interview with Semafor.
The club faced the prospect of relegation to La Liga 2, the Spanish second division. If relegated, the team would face a significant loss in television revenue. Hedging against this, they allegedly placed a wager on the club not to win a match near the end of the season.
What Club Was It?
The report did not disclose which team allegedly placed the bet. In the final game of the season, two teams won matches 1-0: Celta Vigo and Getafe. Both, however, were already safe from being relegated.
That points to the match being one from the previous week. On May 17, three teams won 1-0: Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid, and Alavés. The two Madrid teams had both secured Champions League places and were far from relegation danger.
In La Liga, three teams are relegated each season. Alaves started the weekend with 40 points, just one above 18th and 19th place. They took on already relegated Real Oviedo and won 1-0. The victory secured their status in the top flight for another year.
When contacted for comment, the club did not respond. Neither did Kalshi. Semafor claims that Susquehanna was on the other side of the trade and made more than $1 million. The company, which acts as a market maker for Kalshi, also did not respond to the allegations.
Could Club Face Sanctions?
Kalshi’s market rules state that the following are prohibited from trading on sports matches:
- Current and former players, coaches, and staff of the league, association, or organization(s) governing the event
- Paid employees of the league and league participants
- Owners of teams and the league
- Household members and the immediate family of all above
The Semafor report alleges that the team’s owners initiated the trade, which would violate Kalshi’s rules. Spain also prohibits owners of sports clubs from gambling on matches.
The prohibition extends broadly to competitions in which the club participates, not just its own matches. The club would face fines from Spain’s gambling regulator as well as possible sanctions from La Liga and UEFA, Europe’s governing body for soccer.
The club is not accused of manipulating the match’s outcome, which it went on to win. If match manipulation were a factor, the owners and the team would face more severe sanctions, including criminal prosecution. It is unclear whether the club’s owners would face criminal charges in this case.
Spain Blocks Kalshi
Not long after the alleged trade, on May 26, Spain announced that it had blocked both Kalshi and Polymarket.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs issued an order restricting access to the platforms it says offer gambling services without a valid license.
When announcing the sanction against the companies, the Ministry said the operators “lack the technical and regulatory guarantees required in Spain, including identity verification systems, access control mechanisms for minors, and people self-excluded or prohibited from playing.”
La Liga Continues Polymarket Partnership
Despite Spain blocking the platform, La Liga continues to partner with Polymarket. The league signed a multi-year deal in April to make the company its official prediction market partner in the US and Canada.
In the announcement, La Liga said, “Through this partnership, La Liga and Polymarket will collaborate to establish a responsible and transparent framework that promotes innovative fan participation while upholding the highest standards of sporting integrity.“
Serie A in Italy signed a similar deal with the platform last month, even though it is also blocked in the country.
If proven true, a club owner wagering against its own team would be a significant scandal and make it highly unlikely that Spain or other countries that block prediction markets would relax their stance against the platforms.
