Prediction markets that rode politics and sports to new heights the past two years are betting on their convergence this autumn to drive even more adoption.
In 2024, event contract exchanges entered the mainstream with trades tied to the presidential election that year. Then, in September 2025, the start of the NFL season a year ago marked the beginning of a surge in prediction market trading volume that has yet to slow down.
Prediction markets began another NFL season on Wednesday night, when the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks dueled it out in a rematch of the 2026 Super Bowl. Labor Day also marked what political observers always consider the start of the midterm election campaign season.
This year, prediction markets enter the fall bigger than they've ever been, with daily notional trading volume now consistently in the billions, two dominant incumbents and a host of smaller exchanges chasing them to take some share of the market. And now the two events that separately brought prediction markets mainstream, are happening together over just a few months.
"You have a bit of a supercycle occurring right now within the prediction markets," said Robinhood's general manager for futures and prediction markets, JB Mackenzie.
Other events are in the wings this season, too, with traders showing greater interest in economic contracts linked to where a hard-to-read Federal Reserve may take interest rates next week, and Major League Baseball playoffs in full swing in October.
Prediction platforms have rushed to prepare for the fall's events. That will continue so long as the markets continue to get the majority of their volume from sports offerings, said Seni Thomas, CEO at EDGE Markets, a financial technology company working in sports betting and prediction markets.
This season could prove crucial, especially for newer platforms. "This NFL cycle is the real key, make or break" for many newer companies, Thomas said.
Veteran players
On Tuesday, Polymarket debuted an advertisement featuring basketball icon LeBron James, former New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning and former Yankee Derek Jeter as part of a football season marketing campaign. It also unveiled a new product for its U.S. exchange which allows users to talk, share and trade together on the platform.
Kalshi experienced a record $2.3 billion in volume traded on Saturday, the first day of college football, and unveiled a feature for speculators who participated in 2025 NFL season markets to track how they performed before this season's kickoff. It has also expanded partnerships with individual sports teams ahead of the MLB playoff season.
Both platforms suffered glitches as college football play began. Polymarket's U.S. platform was down much of Saturday, and any account that experienced losses due to the outage was eventually refunded. Kalshi prematurely resolved a market on the University of Michigan game, paying traders as if the underdog Western Michigan had pulled off an upset. Later, Kalshi corrected the Michigan result and paid out accordingly.
The platforms are leaning into sports, even while battling in court with states across the country that say sports-related event contracts amount to gambling and should fall under their regulatory purview rather than the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a Wall Street watchdog.
"We operate pursuant to the regulations of the CFTC, and we'll continue to do so, and continue to work with stakeholders to run a safe and trusted product," said Ari Borod, president of sports business development at Polymarket in August before announcing a partnership with the New York Yankees.
New entrants
While the two largest prediction market platforms seek to build on their previous NFL success, others are also trying to capitalize on the same sporting events.
Rothera, a prediction market platform developed in a joint venture between Susquehanna International Group and Robinhood, is one of them. It saw volumes boom after going online in time for the FIFA World Cup over the summer.
"Rolling out all these sports, that's a big lift," CEO Thomas Chippas said. "We've only been live since the last week of May ... We're going as fast as we can, as prudently we can."
Novig, a platform that only lists sports event contracts, started an NFL marketing campaign on Wednesday with an ad featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, one of the first celebrities to work with a smaller exchange.
ProphetX, which launched in June focusing on sports-related event contracts, also has worked to get ready for the fall by revamping its consumer platform and focusing on boosting liquidity during the NFL season.
"Our revenue doubled from June to August," ProphetX co-founder and CEO Dean Sisun said in an interview. "I would love to see it four to 5x by the end of the year on a run rate basis … I really think we can do that."
Midterm opportunity
While ProphetX features sports event contracts, Sisun said the platform is planning to launch midterm election-related markets too.
Robinhood is featuring Rothera's elections-related contracts to users on its brokerage.
In the lead-up to November, Kalshi has launched several tools, such as a midterm elections hub in July, giving users data about political races all across the country. For election night, it's working on an in-person event, as well as contemplating the best way for traders and viewers to see how odds across races are changing as results pour in, Kalshi's head of politics growth Benjamin Freeman said.
Unlike in 2024, when election-related event contracts weren't legal in the U.S. until a month before the presidential vote, "there's a much longer runway to plan" in 2026, said Benjamin Freeman, head of politics growth at Kalshi.
The midterms also give platforms an opportunity to remind the public that they're more than just sports, even as the majority of trading volume continues to come from those contests.
"This week it's probably going to be a lot more about NFL," Mackenzie of Robinhood said, "but I think that's what's interesting about prediction markets. It evolves based upon what people want to be trading and what's in the news cycle."
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.