FanDuel will accept sports event contracts later this year, bringing the U.S. online gambling market share leader into a growing prediction market space in a move that could alter the nascent platforms and upend regulated gaming.
- FanDuel will launch sports event contracts through CME Group in states without legal sportsbooks.
- The move follows DraftKings’ similar plan, signaling both leaders will risk regulatory scrutiny for new growth.
- Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are booming, attracting billions in investment and major players.
The company will launch FanDuel Predicts, offering users in states without legal sportsbooks opportunities to place event contracts on sporting events, FanDuel parent company Flutter Entertainment announced Wednesday. These event contracts will cover winners, spread, and some individual player performances across baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.
The standalone FanDuel Predicts app is set to launch in December. It will only be available in states that don't offer legal mobile sports betting and can only be accessed off tribal lands.
FanDuel plans to stop offering event contracts if states legalize sports betting, per release. Georgia, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are among the remaining 19 states without legal mobile sports betting that are set to consider legalization next year.
FanDuel announced a partnership with federally-certified derivatives marketplace CME Group in August. The accompanying press release said the deal would allow users to trade event contracts on oil, gas, gold, cryptocurrencies, and other economic indicators but did not mention sports. The company reaffirmed Wednesday it still plans to offer event contracts on these and other commodities.
“We can’t wait to bring FanDuel's proven approach to product innovation into this dynamic sector," said FanDuel CEO Amy Howe in a statement. "Our partnership with CME Group allows us to leverage their deep market expertise built over decades while delivering the seamless, accessible and trusted experience our customers expect."
FanDuel Predicts customers will go through the company's “Know Your Customer” sign up process, providing information including their birth date, Social Security number, home address, banking information and ID, per the announcement release. Customers can buy or sell event contracts ranging in price from as little as $0.01 to $0.99.
Customers may also set deposit limits, deposit alerts, and self-exclusion options that apply to all existing FanDuel products.
Rival DraftKings released sports event contract plans during its earnings call last week, less than a month after it acquired licensed prediction market operator Railbird. Several legacy gaming operators including Caesars, MGM, and PENN Entertainment said in recent weeks they had no prediction market launch plans.
FanDuel and DraftKings accept more than two-thirds of all legal sports bets placed in the U.S. The two companies that dominated the first decade of legal nationwide sports betting now enter the rapidly-expanding prediction market space in a move that could further energize the industry – and draw more regulatory scrutiny.
Prediction market background
Existing prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket are certified by the federal government. They allow users to trade contracts on a wide range of political, pop culture, and sporting events, among other areas. Unlike sportsbooks, users trade with each other, not the operator.
They operate in all 50 states and, under their interpretation of the law, are not subject to state-level gambling restrictions.
This has sparked lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions as state regulatory organizations argue sports event contracts are illegal gambling and the market operators argue federal authorization supersedes the regulators’ authority. Industry stakeholders believe court cases will likely drag on for years until settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the meantime, several state regulatory agencies have written to their sportsbook operators that offering sports event contracts in any state could jeopardize their licenses.
Traditional online sportsbooks can offer thousands of multi-leg parlays, which make up their highest profit margins, that prediction markets can not offer with their person-to-person trades. But for DraftKings, and now FanDuel, the potential to offer event contracts in states that may not permit sportsbooks for years, including California and Texas, was worth the regulatory risk.
Market growth
For the U.S. sports betting leaders, their prediction market launches come as the competitor pool becomes more robust.
Kalshi received an additional $300 million in funding in October, bringing its corporate valuation to over $5 billion. In the same month Polymarket, which is set to re-launch in the U.S. in the coming weeks, garnered a $2 billion investment from the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, bringing the platform's valuation to roughly $9 billion.
Here's an updated list of CFTC-regulated prediction markets after recent announcements:
— Mick Bransfield (@MickBransfield) November 10, 2025
Today:
Kalshi
ForecastEx
Crypto .com
Closed Beta:
Polymarket US
Soon:
Underdog
DraftKings
FanDuel
Aristotle
RSBIX
PrizePicks
Coinbase
Truth Predict
Hollywood .com
MyPrize
Gemini
ProphetX
Leading cryptocurrency trading companies including Crypto.com, Coinbase, Gemini, and ProphetX have jumped into the prediction market space. Daily fantasy pick’em sites including Underdog and PrizePicks have also announced sports event contract plans.
Sporting events typically draw more volume for prediction markets than all other event contract types combined.
FanDuel and DraftKings dominate U.S. sports betting market share in part because they were the first major daily fantasy operators, and then the most aggressive movers in the early days of nationwide legal sports betting. The DFS-turned-sportsbook operators are now banking an early move into prediction markets will yield similar results.
