Prediction markets in iGaming: 2026 market overview.

The headline numbers

The prediction-market industry crossed several milestones in 2025 that make it impossible for licensed iGaming operators to ignore as a vertical:

• $76 billion in combined trading volume across Kalshi and Polymarket in 2025, up from approximately $9 billion in 2024 — a 400%+ year-on-year increase (KPMG, 2026; Zitadelle AG, 2026).
• $20 billion in monthly volume reached in January 2026 alone, according to TRM Labs — a level that would have represented an entire year's volume as recently as 2023.
• 89% of Kalshi's 2025 fee revenue came from sports markets (KPMG, 2026), establishing prediction markets as a sports product first and everything else second.
• Industry revenue estimated at $2 billion annually today, with projections of $8–10 billion by 2030 (CFG Partners, cited by International Banker).
• Kalshi raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation in 2025, while Intercontinental Exchange committed $2 billion to Polymarket with exclusive global data distribution rights (Zitadelle AG, 2026).

For context: the global sports-betting market is approximately $200 billion in annual gross gaming revenue. Prediction markets are at roughly 0.01% of that scale today — but growing at a pace that makes the comparison gap close faster than most operators expect.

Why sports drove 89% of fee revenue

The dominance of sports in prediction-market fee revenue is not an accident. Sports events have clear, verifiable outcomes on a fixed timeline — exactly the conditions that make binary contracts liquid and tradeable. An operator audience that already bets on sport finds prediction-market contracts on the same events intuitive. The underlying audience is the same; the product format is different.

This alignment means prediction markets are not a separate audience acquisition challenge. They are a new product format for an audience that already exists in the sportsbook funnel. Around 70% of prediction-market bets are sport-aligned — which means an operator adding prediction markets is, in practice, deepening sports engagement rather than diversifying away from it.

The major integrations that changed the landscape

Several institutional moves in 2025–2026 accelerated the mainstreaming of prediction markets for iGaming operators:

• DraftKings became a CFTC-registered Introducing Broker, giving its users in 38 US states access to prediction-market contracts. A major sports-betting brand embedding prediction markets as a native product is the clearest signal that the vertical is moving from niche to mainstream (KPMG, 2026).
• CME Group partnered with FanDuel to launch FanDuel Predicts — a derivatives-style prediction-market product distributed through one of the largest sports-betting brands in the US (International Banker, 2026).
• Robinhood launched a Prediction Markets Hub and now derives an estimated 10% of its revenue from prediction-market activity (Zitadelle AG, 2026).
• NHL licensed its trademarks to Kalshi and Polymarket, and FIFA named its official prediction-market partner ahead of the 2026 World Cup, embedding prediction contracts in global sports ecosystems (Zitadelle AG, 2026).

Each of these moves signals the same thing: established brands in adjacent industries are adding prediction markets as a product layer, not building standalone prediction-market businesses. The infrastructure model — add prediction-market liquidity to an existing operator stack — is now the default approach at scale.

The regulatory landscape for iGaming operators

Regulatory clarity varies significantly by jurisdiction, which is the primary determinant of timing for licensed iGaming operators:

• Curaçao — the most accessible path for operators in LATAM and non-EU markets. Prediction markets run under existing Curaçao gaming licences without a separate regulatory entity. The first commercial deployments of operator-grade prediction-market platforms are live under Curaçao.
• MGA (Malta) — in compliance review for prediction-market compatibility. The EU-regulated path, relevant for operators with existing MGA licences who want to add the vertical without standing up a new entity.
• Anjouan — active for crypto-native operators. USDC/USDT settlement, L1 and L2 rails, KYC at withdrawal threshold.
• US regulated states — complex. Kalshi operates as a CFTC-registered exchange under a derivatives framework. State-level sports-betting regulators are actively lobbying against prediction markets as competitive products. DraftKings' approach — CFTC broker registration — is one path, but requires separate regulatory infrastructure from a standard gaming licence.
• Political prediction markets — specifically constrained. At least 10 US states have introduced bills restricting or banning political prediction markets (Zitadelle AG, 2026). Sports-only or finance-only prediction markets face fewer regulatory headwinds.

For operators outside the US, the regulatory picture is more straightforward: light-regulated jurisdictions (Curaçao, Anjouan, Tobique, Kahnawake) offer a viable path now, with MGA and other tier-1 EU licences on a 6–12 month horizon.

The B2B infrastructure gap

The volume growth and institutional activity have not been matched by B2B platform development. As of mid-2026, there is no dominant B2B infrastructure vendor for licensed iGaming operators adding prediction markets. The current landscape consists of:

• Consumer-facing platforms (Polymarket, Kalshi) that are not B2B products
• Trading-infrastructure vendors (Shift Markets, Tradesmarter) oriented toward financial brokers, not iGaming operators
• Custom development shops offering Probo-style clones without operator-grade compliance or casino cross-sell
• A small number of iGaming-native platforms beginning to integrate prediction-market liquidity alongside their existing casino and sportsbook products

This gap represents the primary opportunity for operators who move early. The audience exists, the liquidity exists, and the demand from institutional distributors (DraftKings, FanDuel, Robinhood) has established the product format. The missing piece — an operator-grade B2B stack that connects prediction-market liquidity to casino cross-sell in a licenced iGaming context — is what early-moving operators can use as a differentiation lever while the market matures.

What the 2026 World Cup means for prediction markets

FIFA's appointment of an official prediction-market partner for the 2026 World Cup is the highest-profile signal yet that sports prediction markets are moving into the mainstream event calendar. The World Cup is the most-watched sporting event globally, and the prediction-market format — event-based YES/NO contracts on match outcomes, group stage results and tournament winners — maps naturally to the way sports fans engage with a tournament bracket.

For operators planning a prediction-market product, a launch timeline that reaches production before the World Cup (July 2026) captures this audience at peak sports engagement. Operators who launch in the next 8 weeks can be live for the tournament.

The cross-sell economics that close the business case

The business case for prediction markets as a standalone product is thin — platform fees of 1–5% of volume are lower than sportsbook hold. The business case for prediction markets as an acquisition channel into casino is strong. In operator data from a Curaçao launch on the Turbo Stars platform (Q2 2026), 41% of prediction-market players placed a casino bet in week one, with a +28% LTV uplift versus a casino-only cohort. Casino margin at 25–40% on those converted players closes the economics comprehensively.

The structural requirement for this cross-sell to work is a shared wallet and player view — one deposit funds predictions, casino and sportsbook on the same account. This is not achievable by integrating Polymarket directly; it requires a B2B platform that has already built the casino and sportsbook integration alongside the prediction-market product.

Continue reading: Prediction markets vs sportsbook — operator's decision guide. Polymarket for operators — why Polymarket is a liquidity source, not a B2B platform.