A basketball only finds the net during practice before a 2024 NCAA Tournament game at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
Charles LeClaire | Reuters
Prediction markets saw strong results from the Super Bowl, but that was just an appetizer for a banquet of sporting events in 2026 that are expected to generate increased event contract volumes.
Kalshi saw record downloads during Super Bowl week, up 1,544% from the same period last year, according to a report from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The number of daily active users jumped more than 1,100% to nearly 2 million on the day of the big game, the company said.
This represents nearly three times the number of daily active users at BetMGM sportsbook, co-owned by MGM and Entain, which grew 81% to 680,000 daily active users. Polymarket reported 59,000 daily active users and 264% growth from the previous year.
More than $1 billion was traded on Kalshi for the Super Bowl, an increase of 2,700% according to the company. Founder and CEO Tarek Mansour told CNBC on Tuesday that consumers are attracted by having many trading options for the game in one place.
“Our cultural markets were huge this weekend. You know, ‘What [Bad] Bunny was going to do over $100 million in trading,” he said.
Although prediction markets allow users to purchase event contracts for a wide range of financial, weather, pop cultural and other events, sports drives the action and profits.
Robin Hood CEO Vlad Tenev is pushing back against investor concerns that the Super Bowl was as good as it gets for trading in sports prediction markets.
“What we’re actually seeing surprises us,” Tenev said Tuesday during his company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call. “In January, for example, NBA contracts surpassed NFL contracts in commercial activity on our platform.”
Major sporting events continue to unfold, with the Winter Olympics offering a variety of betting options until February 22. This weekend, fans will also be amazed during the NBA All-Star weekend.
March brings college basketball madness, with the NCAA Tournament kicking off with Selection Sunday on March 15. The entire tournament typically brings in more gambling money than the Super Bowl.
And then there’s the World Cup, which kicks off 104 matches in mid-June.
Kalshi has been aggressive on marketing, spending about 19 times as much as Polymarket in the U.S. and outselling DraftKings by about 35%, according to estimates from Sensor Tower.
Yet American sports betting giants remain dominant. DraftKings saw 5 million daily active users for the Super Bowl and FanDuel had 4.2 million, according to Sensor Tower data.
The CEOs of sports betting market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings both told CNBC just before the game that they didn’t see any cannibalization of their traditional sports betting business. Instead, they see a real opportunity in sports and event contracts in states that have not legalized sports betting.
Tenev said event contracts are “the fastest growing business in the company’s history.” Robinhood reported a 300% increase in “other revenue,” which is largely comprised of event-driven contracts.
And growth is accelerating. Robinhood reported 12 billion event contracts in 2025, and has already seen 4 billion contracts so far in 2026.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a business relationship that includes a minority investment.