Prediction Markets Handled 10x More Than US Sportsbooks During the World Cup — and a Third Exchange Just Entered the Race
Prediction market platforms combined for over $50 billion in trading volume in June 2026 as the FIFA World Cup drove the sector's most active month on record — roughly ten times the $2.8–4.3 billion projected for US legal sportsbooks across the entire 104-match tournament. ADI Predictstreet, the FIFA official prediction market partner, co-branded with Kalshi in stadiums and on Fox Sports. Rothera, the exchange Robinhood built with Susquehanna International Group, processed $2 billion in its debut month.
Prediction market platforms combined for over $50 billion in trading volume in June 2026, the most active month in the sector's history, as the FIFA World Cup produced the first major test of prediction markets at global sports scale. Kalshi posted $31 billion in total notional volume — a 70% jump over May and a record by a wide margin — with sports contracts accounting for roughly 85% of activity. Polymarket's international exchange recorded $10.8 billion, its own monthly record, while its regulated US platform logged an additional $3.5 billion. Rothera, the new exchange operated by Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group, added $2 billion in its debut month. US legal sportsbooks are projected to handle $2.8 to $4.3 billion across all 104 World Cup matches combined. Prediction markets processed approximately ten times that figure.
The ADI Predictstreet co-branding deal is the most significant commercial development from the tournament. ADI Predictstreet — which holds CFTC approval to operate in the US and Gibraltar's new regulatory licence — is the FIFA-designated official prediction market partner of the 2026 World Cup. Under a co-branding agreement announced in late June, Kalshi's logo appeared alongside ADI's in stadium signage at US matches, in Fox Sports broadcasts, and across ADI's digital tournament hub during the knockout rounds. It is the first time a US prediction market platform has had mass-market sports-media distribution at an event of this size. The partnership matters for the ongoing state legal battles: it is structurally awkward for a state regulator to argue that event contracts are inherently problematic while the FIFA-sanctioned official partner is running stadium advertisements for them at the same venues.
Rothera's $2 billion debut is the most significant new competitive development for the sector. Rothera is the designated contract market Robinhood built through a joint venture with Susquehanna International Group — 45% Robinhood, 45% SIG, 10% MIAX — that closed in January 2026. The exchange launched publicly by routing Robinhood's World Cup event contracts through its own licensed marketplace rather than through Kalshi. Robinhood's CFO has said the company expects most of its prediction-market volume to migrate to Rothera over time. For Kalshi, the World Cup delivered a record-breaking month while simultaneously revealing that its largest retail distribution partner was completing the infrastructure to capture that flow internally. The combined $50 billion figure therefore obscures a competitive shift: Kalshi's share of the total is declining even as the market itself grows.
The tournament also expanded the demographic base of prediction market users in ways that traditional sportsbooks have failed to do. Kalshi reported a surge in female and first-time users during the World Cup — a group that established sports-betting apps with their casino-adjacent branding and complexity have not attracted at scale. Robinhood's CFO called prediction markets 'one of the fastest-growing products' in the company's history, with more than 16 billion event contracts traded in 2026 to date, and publicly stated a view that the market would eventually reach trillions of dollars in volume. Those projections are speculative, but the World Cup data is not: in the sector's first full major tournament at scale, prediction markets outperformed the entire US regulated sports-betting industry by an order of magnitude.
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Utah Files Felony Charges Against Kalshi and Its Founders — Second State to Criminally Charge a Platform
Utah filed criminal charges against Kalshi and its two co-founders, Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, on October 28 — 13 felonies and a misdemeanor, including a second-degree 'pattern of unlawful criminal activity' count and 12 counts of online gambling promotion. The charges stem from a September sting in which an undercover agent placed 12 sports wagers verified to be in Utah. The CFTC sued Utah the day before to block state enforcement, its tenth such suit. Utah is the second state after Arizona to criminally charge Kalshi, and the first to charge the founders personally. Kalshi called it a 'crazy overreach.'
NBA Names Kalshi and Polymarket Preferred Exchanges — Leaving the NFL Alone in Opposition
The NBA announced on October 26 that it has named Kalshi and Polymarket its 'preferred prediction market exchanges,' signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the CFTC on basketball integrity, and expanded its DraftKings deal to include prediction markets — the first league to extend a sportsbook partnership into the category. The exchange deals bar league and team personnel from trading NBA contracts, limit permissible markets, and require sharing of suspicious-trading data, in exchange for NBA intellectual property and official data. The NBA joins MLB, the NHL, and MLS as partnered leagues, leaving the NFL as the lone major holdout — and the only league fighting the platforms in court.
CFTC Chair Says Agency Is Watching Prediction Markets for Manipulation Ahead of Midterms
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said on October 23 that the agency is closely monitoring prediction markets for manipulation ahead of the November 3 midterms, and that it is separately scrutinizing oil market trading tied to President Trump's announcements about the war in Iran. Combined midterm open interest on Kalshi and Polymarket stood at $250 million as of October 18, with Kalshi holding 84%. Selig acknowledged the agency often catches political figures attempting to trade 'oftentimes after the fact.' The remarks highlight the CFTC's dual and somewhat conflicting role as both the platforms' federal protector and their manipulation watchdog, at a time when the agency has shed enforcement staff.