Is the biggest winner of the Super Bowl the prediction market?
Source: Bankless
Author: David Christopher
Did Prediction Markets Win the Super Bowl?
Compiled and organized by: bitPushNews
This year's Super Bowl — Seattle Seahawks vs. New England Patriots — while missing the superstar effect the Chiefs had on the Eagles last year when Taylor Swift helped, marked a turning point: for the first time, the prediction market was clearly seen as the real rival of traditional sports betting.
Two major prediction market platformsKalshi和PolymarketThey all set up markets around this game, halftime shows, commercials, etc., and the preliminary data painted an interesting and complicated picture.
A quick note before we begin: sports bookmakers haven't aggregated their total bets — this will take a few days. Therefore, this article is based on sports betting parties' forecast data and predicting the actual trading volume of the market.
Sports betting forecast: new high, but growth is slowing
The American Gaming Association predicts that US sports betting companies will bet about 1.76 billion US dollars in the 60th Super Bowl, which will set a record, with a year-on-year increase of about 27%. Although the exact numbers vary slightly from source to source, most predictions point in the same direction: reaching new highs, continuing the eight years of growth since the Supreme Court allowed states to legalize sports betting in 2018.
But growth is clearly slowing. Currently, 39 states and Washington, D.C., have opened sports betting, and only Missouri is a new addition to the current cycle — which means that the surge in previous years, driven by market expansion, is giving way to gradual growth. In this context, predicting the market is another factor inhibiting growth. Ed Birkin of H2 Gambling Capital told “Fortune” magazine that he estimates that the market will account for 80% of the year-on-year increase in gambling activity this year, and predicts that the market's trading volume will reach US$630 million throughout the tournament.
Based on the data currently available, the predicted market performance appears to be far below that figure.
Kalshi
Kalshi's market dedicated to the Super Bowl (that is, contracts directly linked to games, halftime shows, and broadcasts) generated impressive but less than anticipated trading volume:
Bad Bunny halftime show opening track:$1.135 billion
Which companies will premiere commercials:$72.2 million
Who will perform in the competition:$47.3 million
In these few leading markets alone, the total trading volume is about US$233 million, which is far below analysts' predictions for the overall forecast market of US$630 million.
Additionally, Kalshi's flagship NFL market—a “who will win the Super Bowl” contract that has been open for months and lasts throughout the season — has a total trading volume of over $500 million. But that number reflects cumulative trading volume throughout the NFL season, not just Super Bowl weekend. Even so, this is less than one-third of the amount that sports bookmakers expect to bet on a single Super Bowl game.
Over the past few months, sports betting has accounted for the vast majority (over 90%) of Kalshi's total trading volume, thanks to its promotion channels that are no less than or superior to sports betting companies.
First, Kalshi is federally regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which means that US users can use it directly through its mobile app, just like using a sports betting app. Plus the advertising capital reserves provided by super venture capital, andRobinhoodOf partnerships, Kalshi stood out.
This foundation is paying off: in January of this year alone, Kalshi had 1.9 million downloads, while DraftKings and FanDuel's new prediction market app in December last year had a combined download of less than 100,000 (the two apps went live in states where their traditional sports betting apps are not allowed, but the response has been mediocre so far).
Additionally, DraftKings also partnered with Crypto.com on Friday to expand its event contract product, which shows that existing giants are taking this threat seriously.
Polymarket
Polymarket's NFL market volume is around $700 million throughout the season — higher than Kalshi — but the situation in its Super Bowl-specific market is different.
Polymarket's top three Super Bowl markets have a total trading volume of around $76 million:
Home game market:$55.26 million
Super Bowl MVP:$12 million
Who will perform the halftime show:$9 million
Polymarket lacks Kalshi's regulatory approval in the US, which means US users can't access it directly through the mobile app. Technically speaking, after acquiring a CFTC-registered exchange last year, PolyMarket now has US applications, but it is still gradually opening up through a waitlist, and its Super Bowl products are limited.
As of the week before the game, there wasn't even any sports market listed on the app, and the full set of Super Bowl specialty games was only available on its global website.
As a result, most US users still need to access websites, use VPNs, etc. For casual sports bettors, this isn't a starting line at all compared to downloading Kalshi from the App Store.
What really stands out about Polymarket, though, is its primary use case — information discovery. In the middle field show performer market, Lady Gaga's probability remained stable at around 80% within the first few days of the competition — this far predated her unexpected appearance on the halftime show. “Billboard” magazine had no previous reports on it, and it really surprised everyone who watched it with me.
Regulatory developments
This all happened in the context of unresolved regulatory conflicts.
Kalshi operates as an exchange regulated by the CFTC federally, which has enabled its sports contracts to advance — especially after new CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said it would not block or cede regulation to states. State gaming regulators that oversee sports betting companies continue to challenge Kalshi and his peers in court, and many analysts expect these cases to eventually be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Currently, the prediction market operates in a grey area, making it possible to cover the whole country without requiring individual licenses from each state — a structural advantage that sports betting companies cannot easily replicate.
Summarize
So, is predicting whether the market has met people's hype expectations for Super Bowl LX? Compared to the $630 million forecast, it has not been fully met.
In the top Super Bowl specialty markets visible on the two leading platforms, the total trading volume was about US$310 million — about half of the predicted value. The NFL market throughout the season achieved huge trading volume on both platforms, but that was the accumulation of months of soccer games, not a single week of Super Bowl weekend outbreaks.
The context is just as important. Kalshi garnered 1.9 million downloads in January this year, dwarfing the sum of the forecasting market apps of DraftKings and FanDuel.
This pressure is already intuitively reflected in stock prices — according to “Fortune” magazine, the stock price of FanDuel's parent company Flutter Entertainment has been falling for eight consecutive weeks, the longest decline in 23 years; DraftKings stock prices have hovered at a trough since 2023, falling more than 60% from their all-time high.
According to Bloomberg data, over the past three months, the market's profit forecast for Flutter's fourth quarter has been drastically lowered by nearly 49%, and DraftKings expectations have also declined by 29%. Just imagine if someone were betting “DraftKings will fall short of expectations” on Polymarket, they might have quietly made a profit at the moment.
The prediction market may not have conquered the Super Bowl overnight, but they have already stepped in — and for traditional sports betting platforms, the trajectory of this trend is alarming enough.
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