Prediction markets are poised to do big business on this year’s Super Bowl.
- Prediction markets are seeing a relative surge in Super Bowl-related betting ahead of the Big Game.
- Some estimates suggest that tens of millions of dollars in Super Bowl handle could shift to prediction markets, with operators like Kalshi already reporting far higher volume than last year.
- More platforms are entering the space, and access to key states such as California could help with trading volume on the game.
Exactly how big it will be is, well, the big question. The federally regulated exchanges only began offering sports-related event contracts for trading in late 2024, so their sports-related business is still relatively new, and the floor and ceiling still hard to gauge.
What is pretty safe to assume is that plenty of people will be using prediction markets to make bets on the Super Bowl. And, in a lot of cases, they’ll be betting on the exchanges as an alternative to state-regulated online sportsbooks they either don’t have or aren't using.
Investment bank Citizens is forecasting a slight, 2% dip in legal wagering on this year's Super Bowl, to $1.5B. Possible explanations: a (relative) lack of promos, a lack of Swift, and an abundance of prediction markets. pic.twitter.com/2ouql0gPae
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) January 28, 2026
Citizens analyst Jordan Bender wrote earlier this month that the investment bank estimates around 5% of legal sports betting handle is being lost to prediction markets, or approximately $8 billion on an annualized basis.
If you take that estimate and apply it to the American Gaming Association's estimate of $1.76 billion in legal wagering on this year’s Big Game, you'd get approximately $88 million in prediction market cannibalization.
That alone would be more than three times the trading volume that prediction market operator Kalshi reported for last year’s Super Bowl, which was $27 million. Trading volume and sportsbook handle aren’t identical either; the former, for example, counts a 25-cent "bet" as a dollar of volume.
In other words, $88 million in handle would probably translate into even more in trading volume. And, as of Friday afternoon, Kalshi was reporting more than $150 million in volume on the Big Game.
With a little help from my ... friends?
Already, then, the prediction market operator has roughly seen five times the interest in betting on the game. A good deal of that is tied to wagers made throughout the NFL season that have been settled already, but more wagering will surely come in the run-up to the New England-Seattle matchup, as well as during.
Kalshi has a lot more company this year as well. Not only is Crypto.com once again offering event contracts tied to the Super Bowl, but so are several other, newer brands.
That includes DraftKings- and FanDuel-branded prediction markets, which are poised to offer parlays for the Big Game as well. Even the Gemini prediction market, founded by the Winklevoss twins, was reporting more than $500,000 in volume involving its Super Bowl contracts Friday.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has formally requested that Robinhood Derivatives, LLC (RHD) “not permit customers to access” sports event contracts.
— Robinhood Comms (@RobinhoodComms) February 4, 2025
While we continue to work with the CFTC to understand their concerns, we are suspending the rollout of the Pro…
There will also be the presence of Robinhood this year. The popular trading platform had to pull the plug on its Super Bowl-related contracts last year amid regulatory uncertainty, but this year, it is ready to go.
So, a busier Super Bowl for prediction markets seems inevitable. Among other things, the number of betting markets tied to the game has expanded as well, far beyond just who will win the game.
While how busy remains to be seen, the fact that the game is being played in California, where there is no legal sports betting, and involving a team from Washington, where there are no authorized options for statewide mobile wagering, also bodes well for prediction market volume.
That means there may be some legal sports betting handle that shifts to prediction markets this Super Bowl but also handle that was never going to go there in the first place. A lack of legal sportsbooks in a state could drive business to prediction markets.
There have been some recent bullish projections about prediction markets overall. Research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming released a report last month that argued there is a "plausible case" for U.S. prediction markets to top $1 trillion in annual trading volume with further maturity.
One of the factors considered by the firm was “continued, deeper integration of PMs into (direct-to-consumer) fintech, crypto exchanges, and real-money sports gaming product suites, depending on regulatory clarity and operator strategy.”
