MLB Lockout Odds: 2027 Games Played, Start Date & More

As the 2026 MLB season comes to a close, there's an elephant in the room: A league that's seeing some of the most exciting baseball in its history may be in the midst of a work stoppage. Why? At the conclusion of the 2026 season, the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires, and both the MLB owners and the players' union will need to come to terms on a new agreement before any team activities in preparation for the 2027 season can occur.

If an agreement can't be reached by December 1, 2026 — the expiration date on the current CBA — the owners will call for a lockout until a new deal can be agreed upon by both sides.

If the MLB owners do, in fact, lock out the players, there's also a chance the 2027 regular season doesn't start on time. While the odds of the 2027 season being cancelled due to a failure to reach a new bargaining agreement are quite low, the chances that the season doesn't start on time and the scheduled is altered as a result are much greater.

If you think you have a good idea how how the CBA negotiations and impending MLB lockout will play out, you can trade on these outcomes on prediction markets like Kalshi. Kalshi currently has markets for whether or not an agreement will be reached by the deadline, how many games will be played in 2027 and on what date the 2027 season will begin. 

Let's take a look at the latest Kalshi odds surrounding a potential MLB lockout.

When will the 2027 MLB regular season begin? If you have a prediction, you can trade on it for a chance to win money on Kalshi, which is currently offering five different trading options in this market. The current odds for the season to start on time or within a week of the intended Opening Day aren't exactly slim, but baseball fans would prefer the markets for "Before March 25" and "Before April 1" were a bit higher.

The 2027 MLB regular season start date odds eclipse the 50% mark once you reach the "Before April 30" option, giving baseball fans hope that if there is indeed a delay to the start of next season, it won't last longer than a month and may still include most, if not all games currently scheduled. 

The final market offered on Kalshi sits in mid-July at the All-Star Break, a date on which MLB could cleanly begin the season and play half of the scheduled games before a traditional postseason. But with those odds not being as close to 100% as MLB fans would hope, it's clear that this labor dispute may take longer than anyone wants it to.

How many games will be played in the 2027 MLB season? This market on Kalshi is a bit difficult to parse, as they're listing the available markets as total games played among all MLB teams. The fewest number of games you can trade on to hit the over is 600 games, which is the equivalent of each team having a 40-game schedule, with the next tier available being 1,215 games, which equiates to an 81-game schedule, or 50% of the scheduled games.

If you think MLB teams will play a complete 162-game schedule in 2027, you can trade on the "More than 2,425" games market, whose odds are below 50%, but not as low as fans might fear. The longest odds are on no games to be played at all, but as the 2026 season concludes and negotiations progress further, expect the odds here to gradually increase.

Will there be a lockout this MLB offseason? Odds point to yes, and it's not particularly close. Kalshi currently gives MLB owners and players a 5% chance to reach an agreement by the December 1 deadline, and while owners and the players' union have already had ongoing negotiations that will undoubtedly pick up after the conclusion of the World Series, coming to an agreement in time to avoid a lockout is looking increasingly unlikely.

The key thing to know about this market is that CBA negotiations revolve around the owners' desire to institute a salary cap. The players' union has no intention of budging on this issue, as it would set up future players several years down the road for reduced salaries while owners accrue larger and larger profits. Billionaire owners like the idea of more profit, as you can imagine, and they view these CBA negotiations as their chance to finally institute a cap. If you think that conflict can be resolved by the beginning of December, you can certainly put a few bucks down to potentially earn a big return, but don't expect to win that trade.