The trading volume sent by the World Cup predicts why the market failed to hold on?
Author: Asher
Original title: Data Review: One World Cup, how many dividends can the market expect?
The 2026 World Cup is over, and the prediction market is undergoing a phased test.
Over the past six weeks, many users have added another level of real-time interaction to watching the game by predicting the market's participation results, promotion situation, and champion ownership transactions. Now that the tournament has come to an end,Odaily Planet Daily will review the performance of leading prediction market platforms Kalshi, Polymarket, and Predict.fun before, during and after the World Cup from the three dimensions of trading volume, fee revenue, and TVL.
The World Cup pushed the predicted market trading volume to a new high, but the popularity did not continue
Kalshi maintains the lead, Polymarket closes the gap, predict.fun breaks through the World Cup
Judging from the total trading volume of the platform during the World Cup, Kalshi still maintained a clear lead. Over the same period, Kalshi's total trading volume reached $54.338 billion, and Polymarket was $20.988 billion, which is about 2.6 times the latter.However, if we only look at World Cup-related events, the gap between the two companies quickly narrowed. Kalshi's related trading volume was US$13.591 billion, and Polymarket reached US$10.356 billion. The former was only about 1.3 times that of the latter.(Note: The trading volumes discussed in this article are all nominal trading volumes.)
In the past, Polymarket's representative markets focused more on the US election, cryptocurrencies, and geopolitical events. The World Cup further raised the importance of the sports market in the platform, moving it from a supplementary category to a core trading sector. Kalshi's advantage is that the trading structure is more scattered. In addition to the World Cup, other sporting events, politics, and macro markets can still continue to contribute to trading volume, and also provide more acceptance scenarios for activity after the event.
The total trading volume of predict.fun's platform during the World Cup reached $1,092 billion, of which the World Cup-related market contributed $886 million.Although there is still a clear gap between the overall scale and Kalshi and Polymarket, for a platform that has only been online for more than half a year, this World Cup brought in close to $900 million in trading volume, making Predict.fun one of the most prominent new platforms in this round of tournament dividends.
Before, during, and after the World Cup, the three companies predicted changes in the average daily trading volume of the market platforms
Kalshi's trading volume increased most significantly during the World Cup. Its average daily nominal trading volume in May was US$580 million, rising to US$1,393 million during the competition, an increase of approximately 140%. Trading volume fell back to $494.4 million on July 22, which is already below the May daily average.
Polymarket's change is close to Kalshi's. Its average daily nominal trading volume in May was US$228 million, rising to US$538 million during the World Cup, an increase of about 136%. Trading volume fell to $180.9 million on July 22, also below pre-match levels.
The base of predict.fun is low, but the pull brought by the World Cup is still clear. Its average daily nominal trading volume in May was US$14.7 million, which nearly doubled to US$28 million during the tournament. The trading volume on July 22 was $13.2 million, which basically returned to pre-match levels.
Comparing the daily trading volume after the World Cup alone, the growth brought about by the World Cup is more like a round of concentrated tournament traffic, and has not kept the platform's daily trading volume at a higher level for a long time.Whether it can rise again in the future also depends on whether other sporting events and the non-sports market can catch up with trading demand after the World Cup is over.
How much processing fee revenue did the World Cup bring to the three prediction market platforms?
Kalshi's fee revenue continued to rise as the schedule progressed, surpassing $100 million in a single week in the fourth week
Kalshi's overall fee revenue curve showed a strong upward trend.The four-day revenue for the opening phase was $41.4 million, rising to $64.5 million in the first week, reaching $82.7 million in the second week, reaching $91.3 million in the third week, reaching another level in the fourth week, reaching $102.3 million, the highest point during the entire World Cup period, and slightly falling back to $91 million during the final week.Throughout the World Cup, Kalshi's cumulative revenue from processing fees reached US$473.2 million.
The World Cup's impetus for Kalshi not only brought attention in the early stages of the tournament, but more importantly, continued to push the popularity of transactions into the second half of the tournament. The weekly revenue surpassed 100 million US dollars, which also meant that Kalshi not only received World Cup dividends in terms of trading volume, but also actually converted this round of traffic into revenue at the platform's monetization level.
Polymarket's fee revenue was more stable, but there was no acceleration similar to Kalshi's in the second half
Polymarket's fee revenue trend is significantly flatter. Revenue for four days of the opening phase was $6.9 million, rising to $19.7 million in the first week, then $21.3 million, $21.4 million, $20.7 million, and $21.4 million for the second week, the third week, the fourth week, and the final week, respectively.Throughout the World Cup, Polymarket's cumulative revenue from fees reached US$111.4 million.
Since the first week, Polymarket's weekly fee revenue has basically stabilized at around $20 million. The World Cup did raise Polymarket's fee revenue to a higher level, but starting from the second week, the platform did not continue to expand as the tournament progressed like Kalshi, but remained within a relatively stable range.
predict.fun fee revenue gradually increased as the tournament progressed, totaling $3.48 million over six settlement weeks
Predict.fun's fee revenue is based on the platform's settlement week, and the cycle changes every Tuesday at 10 p.m., so it doesn't completely coincide with the World Cup's natural schedule from June 11 to July 19. The first settlement week was from June 9 to June 16, which included two days of pre-match data; the last settlement week was from July 14 to July 21, which also included two days of post-match data.
Looking at revenue trends, predict.fun's fee revenue for the first settlement week was US$326,200, then increased for three consecutive weeks, and rose to US$755,300 from June 30 to July 7, the highest value in a single week during the World Cup cycle. The next two weeks recorded $677,800 and $732,200, respectively. Although they have not reached new highs, they are still significantly higher than at the beginning of the tournament.The cumulative processing fee revenue for the six settlement weeks during the World Cup reached $3.4813 million.
In the settlement week before the World Cup, that is, from June 2 to June 9, predict.fun's fee revenue was only $159,400.After entering the World Cup cycle, the first week's revenue rose to US$326,200, an increase of about 105%.Since then, it has risen further above $500,000 for most settlement weeks. Even though the first and last two cycles included some pre-match and post-match data, the World Cup still had a significant impact on Predict.fun's fee revenue.
After the World Cup, the fee revenue of the three platforms generally declined, with Kalshi the smallest drop
Kalshi's average daily fee income during the World Cup was $12.13 million.It fell to $11 million on July 22, a decrease of 9.3%.Of the three platforms, Kalshi saw the smallest drop after the match. Although processing fee revenue fell from a high level during the tournament, it remained close to the average daily level of the World Cup.
Polymarket's pullback was more pronounced. Its average daily processing fee revenue during the World Cup was US$2.86 million.It fell to $1.7 million on July 22, a decrease of 40.5%. The increase in revenue brought to Polymarket by the World Cup was concentrated, and as the tournament ended, this increase quickly receded.
predict.fun's average daily fee income during the World Cup was about $8.3 million.It fell to $53,000 on July 22, down 36.1%, the decline was close to that of Polymarket. Although the statistical caliber is slightly different from the previous two, the post-match trend is still clear. The World Cup's impact on Predict.fun's fee revenue was also significant, and it also declined relatively quickly after the tournament ended.
The World Cup did not raise Polymarket TVL, and predict.fun ushered in capital inflows in the second half of the tournament
Polymarket's TVL did not keep pace with trading volume during the World Cup.At the beginning of May, the platform's TVL was around US$410 million, and remained in the range of US$440 million to US$480 million for most of the time thereafter. After the start of the World Cup, TVL still mainly fluctuated around this level. Although it briefly surged during the period at the end of June and the beginning of July, there was no continuous upward trend.
After mid-July, TVL began to decline markedly. At the end of the World Cup, it had dropped to around $400 million, and has now dropped further to around $340 million. The trading volume increased dramatically during the tournament, but the platform's accumulated capital continued to decline after the match, indicating that the World Cup brought more demand for high-frequency transactions, which was not simultaneously converted into long-term retained capital.
Predict.fun's trend is more phased.At the beginning of May, its TVL was around $20 million, then dropped to around $10 million in mid-May, then remained around $15 million until mid-June. At the beginning of the World Cup, TVL did not rise immediately. It didn't start to pick up rapidly until early July, and rose to the $20 million to $25 million range in the second half of the tournament, reaching a stage high around the end of the World Cup.
After the tournament ended, TVL gradually declined. Currently, it has dropped to about $17 million, but it is still above the low in late June. Compared to Polymarket, predict.fun's funding changes are more closely linked to the World Cup process. In particular, there was a more obvious inflow of capital during the knockout phase.
(Note: Since Kalshi's TVL data is not available on-chain, this section only discusses Polymarket and predict.fun.)
Summarize
The World Cup did bring considerable trading volume and handling fee revenue to the prediction market, but post-match data also showed thatThis round of growth did not continue naturally. The average daily trading volume and fee revenue of all three platforms declined after the tournament ended, and Polymarket's TVL continued to decline. Super tournaments can focus on expanding transaction demand in the short term, but they may not directly raise the platform's long-term activity level.
However, World Cup dividends are not limited to short-term data. It has at least verified that sporting events can continue to provide high-frequency, short-cycle trading scenarios for predicting markets,Let more users form the habit of repeatedly trading in continuous matches。
The World Cup has come to an end, but competition for user retention, market supply, and normalized transactions has only just begun.
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