New York Post Promotes Polymarket Bills-Rams Code as New York Sues Prediction Exchanges

Meta description: New York Post promotes a Polymarket Bills-Rams code as New York sues Polymarket and Kalshi over sports event contracts.

Tags: Polymarket, Kalshi, New York, Letitia James, CFTC, NFL

Market platform: none-if-cross-platform

Category: Regulation

The New York Post is promoting a Polymarket signup code tied to Monday night’s Buffalo Bills-Los Angeles Rams game while New York officials are suing Polymarket US and KalshiEX over sports event contracts. The promotion shows how prediction exchanges are using sportsbook-style affiliate marketing while states argue those contracts fall under gambling law.

The Post-linked Polymarket offer uses the code NYPMAX1 and advertises a $25 bonus after a $10 deposit. Similar regional promo pages are appearing around the same Week 5 game. MassLive is carrying a Polymarket code, MASS, tied to a $25 Bills-Rams offer, while OregonLive is promoting a Kalshi referral code, OREGONLIVE55, for Monday Night Football.

The game kicks off at 5:15 p.m. Pacific on October 12, 2026, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and airs on ESPN and ABC, according to the Los Angeles Rams. Sports Illustrated lists Los Angeles as a 2.5-point favorite with a total of 54.5.

What are Polymarket and Kalshi offering around Bills vs. Rams?

The offers resemble customer-acquisition mechanics long used by online sportsbooks: a small deposit or trading threshold unlocks bonus credit. The Post-linked Polymarket promotion advertises “deposit $10, get $25.” OregonLive’s Kalshi page promotes a $55-style referral offer tied to Monday Night Football.

Third-party affiliate pages describe the Polymarket structure in more detail, though those pages are commercial terms rather than independent legal analysis. A Covers listing for Polymarket’s $25 offer, updated October 4, says the bonus carries a 1x playthrough requirement before withdrawal. It says users must be 18 or older, complete photo ID and selfie verification, and enter the code at registration. The listing excludes Nevada and says the offer is not available in all jurisdictions.

Kalshi’s $55 referral structure has similar commercial logic. Under the terms posted for its WTOP55 code, new customers need a first deposit of at least $10 and $25 in cumulative trades. The offer is described as open to U.S. users 18 and older and unavailable in Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada and Washington.

Why does a New York promotion matter?

New York has sued both companies at the center of the prediction-market sports fight. On July 31, 2026, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against KalshiEX LLC, alleging the exchange was running an illegal, unlicensed gambling operation in the state. On September 24, they announced a parallel lawsuit against QCX LLC, doing business as Polymarket US.

The Polymarket complaint seeks a court order barring the company from operating what New York calls an unlicensed gambling business. The attorney general’s office also said it is seeking forfeiture of illegal gains, restitution to affected users and civil penalties.

“Our gambling laws exist to protect New Yorkers, prevent the potential harms of problem gambling, and ensure funding for educational and public benefit programs,” James said in the September announcement. Hochul said she “will always stand up for New Yorkers when bad corporate actors prey on consumers and threaten tax dollars that fund schools and critical public services.”

Polymarket responded with a federal challenge against James and the New York State Gaming Commission, arguing that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has exclusive authority over its contracts and seeking to block state enforcement. That filing puts the New York dispute in the same federal preemption fight already shaping prediction-market litigation in other states.

Does the 18-and-over language collide with New York sports-betting rules?

The age gap is one of the clearest practical differences between the exchanges’ position and New York’s gambling-law theory. Affiliate terms for the Polymarket and Kalshi offers describe eligibility at 18 and older. New York officials say mobile sports wagering in the state is limited to people 21 and older.

Both New York lawsuits allege that sports event contracts expose residents, including people below the state’s legal gambling age, to financial risk. The exchanges’ counterargument is that the products are federally regulated event contracts, not state-regulated wagers. That question sits at the center of the state-versus-exchange cases now moving through courts.

The promotions do not decide the legal issue. They do show that sports prediction markets are competing for customers through the same media channels and bonus-code format that sportsbooks have used since online sports betting spread after the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Murphy v. NCAA.

Where are state limits already affecting the offers?

Massachusetts is the sharpest example in the current affiliate map. In January, Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Christopher Barry-Smith granted Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s request for a preliminary injunction in the state’s case against KalshiEX. The court allowed Massachusetts to block Kalshi from offering sports-related event contracts without a license under the state’s Sports Wagering Law.

Campbell sued Kalshi in September 2025. Massachusetts now appears among the excluded states in the posted terms for Kalshi’s $55-style signup offer. The MassLive Polymarket promotion points to the uneven state-by-state landscape: two prediction exchanges can reach similar sports audiences through regional media, but their legal footing changes quickly depending on the state and the specific product.

How do media partnerships fit into the fight?

Affiliate promo codes are only one form of commercial tie between prediction markets and media companies. The New Republic has reported on Polymarket partnerships with Dow Jones and Substack and Kalshi deals with CNN, CNBC and Fox, arguing that those relationships could help exchanges frame their markets as informational tools rather than pure wagering products.

Promo-code pages are more direct. A data partnership places market prices beside coverage. An affiliate code is designed to acquire funded accounts. The Post-linked Polymarket page, MassLive’s Polymarket promotion and OregonLive’s Kalshi promotion sit in that second category: media-distributed customer acquisition around a specific NFL game.

What happens next in court?

The next legal milestone is any ruling on Polymarket’s federal request to block New York enforcement or any order in the New York state cases against KalshiEX and Polymarket US. Those decisions will determine whether New York can apply its gambling laws, licensing rules and 21-and-over sports-wagering limit to CFTC-regulated sports event contracts while the broader preemption fight continues.

Before then, the commercial test is immediate: Bills-Rams kicks off at 5:15 p.m. Pacific on October 12, 2026, with New York, Massachusetts and Oregon media pages already distributing prediction-market promo codes around the same Monday Night Football audience.