Prediction markets head into basketball season after Super Bowl high

Prediction markets saw strong results from the Super Bowl, but it was just an appetizer for a banquet of sporting events in 2026 that are expected to drive surging volumes in event contracts.

Kalshi saw record downloads during Super Bowl week, up 1,544% from the same time period last year, according to a report from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Daily active users jumped more than 1,100% to nearly 2 million on the day of the big game, the firm said.

That was almost three times the daily active users on sportsbook BetMGM, co-owned by MGM and Entain, which had 81% growth to 680,000 daily active users. Polymarket reported 59,000 daily active users and 264% growth over the previous year.

More than $1 billion was traded on Kalshi for the Super Bowl, up 2,700% according to the company. Founder and CEO Tarek Mansour told CNBC Tuesday that consumers are drawn by having lots of trading options for the game in one place.

“Our culture markets were huge this weekend. You know, ‘What [Bad] Bunny was going to perform’ was over $100 million in trading,” he said.

Though prediction markets enable users to buy event contracts for a wide swath of financial, weather, pop culture and other events, sports have been driving the action and the profits.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is pushing back against any investor concerns the Super Bowl was as good as it gets for trading on sports prediction markets.

“What we’re actually seeing is surprising us,” Tenev said on his company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. “In January, for instance, NBA contracts surpassed NFL in trading activity on our platform.”

Major sports events keep rolling, with the Winter Olympics offering a variety of betting options through Feb. 22. This weekend, fans will also get an eyeful during the NBA All-Star Weekend.

March brings college basketball madness, with the NCAA Tournament taking off with Selection Sunday on March 15. The entire tournament typically brings in more gambling dollars than Super Bowl.

And then there’s the World Cup, kicking off 104 games in mid-June.

Kalshi has been aggressive in marketing, outspending Polymarket in the United States by about 19 times and outspending DraftKings by about 35%, according to Sensor Tower estimates.

Still, the American giants in sports betting remain dominant. DraftKings saw 5 million daily active users for the Super Bowl and FanDuel had 4.2 million, according to the Sensor Tower data.

The CEOs of sportsbook market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings both told CNBC just before the game that they don’t see any cannibalization of their traditional sports betting business. They instead see real opportunity with sports and event contracts in states that haven’t legalized sports wagering.

Tenev said events contracts are the “fastest growing business in the company’s history.” Robinhood reported a 300% rise in “other revenue,” which is largely comprised of event contracts.

And the growth is accelerating. Robinhood reported 12 billion event contracts in 2025, and it’s already seen 4 billion contracts so far in 2026.

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes a minority investment.