In a coming-out party for prediction markets and sports, people just traded nearly $1.5 billion on the Super Bowl winner

By Weston Blasi

The first prediction-markets Super Bowl just happened - and it didn't disappoint

Robinhood said it saw $258 million in trading volume on the Super Bowl winner alone.

Super Bowl LX was dominated by the Seattle Seahawks defense in their rout over the New England Patriots - but prediction markets are emerging as another of the night's big winners.

The top prediction markets saw huge trading volume on Super Bowl LX, adding up to $1.5 billion worth of total trading volume on the winning team alone - likely a record for a single sporting event.

Robinhood (HOOD) saw $258 million in trading volume on the Super Bowl winner alone, while Polymarket, which is not available in the U.S., had trading volume of over $700 million on who would win the NFL championship throughout the season. Kalshi had $500 million on the game's outcome by itself, totaling a reported $900 million when accounting for side markets like novelty props and halftime-show markets.

Last year, Kalshi said it traded just $27 million in total contracts for Super Bowl LIX, although it had only opened to sports trading a few weeks before the big game.

This surge in activity among forecasters or bettors for sporting events illustrates a major shift in the future of betting. Prediction markets, while not technically traditional sportsbooks, still allow users to risk money on sports games - as well as other events like the price of bitcoin (BTCUSD), Federal Reserve interest rates and who the next pope will be.

Prediction markets allow users to buy event contracts with "yes" or "no" outcomes, such as: "Will the Seahawks win the Super Bowl?" Each contract must have the "yes" or "no" outcome, and will range in price between 1 cent and 99 cents, representing what the collective market thinks of the likelihood of an event. So if the "yes" contract for the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl was trading at 67 cents, for example, then the market believed the Seahawks had a 67% chance of winning. A winning "yes" contract on that game turned your 67-cent contract into $1, while a Seahawks loss would have turned it into zero.

The popularity of prediction markets can be attributed to several factors - including newer investors growing more comfortable with risk in their finances, overall interest spiking in various betting activities, and prediction markets now offering sports. For years, sports were not a big factor for prediction markets.

But sports-betting activity, as seen by the Super Bowl figures, has picked up. And a major reason for that is because traditional sports betting, through the likes of DraftKings (DKNG) and FanDuel (FLUT), is regulated and legislated by U.S. states - and there are states where people still cannot legally bet on sports through those apps.

Prediction markets, on the other hand, are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency, and are currently allowed in every state (with some exceptions). And there could be some tax benefits to using prediction markets over traditional sportsbooks, although tax and legal experts are still debating whether sports-related event contracts on prediction sites count as are gambling or investments.

How does that $1.5 billion amount compare to how much money was legally wagered on Super Bowl LX through traditional sportsbooks? Prior to the game, the American Gaming Association estimated that Americans would wager a record $1.76 billion legally on Super Bowl LX, the most ever for a single sporting event.

"No single event brings fans together like the Super Bowl, and this record figure shows just how much Americans enjoy sports betting as part of the experience," Bill Miller, the AGA's president and CEO, told MarketWatch over email. "By choosing legal, regulated sportsbooks, fans are having fun while supporting a safe and responsible market."

It's worth noting that the trading volumes bet through traditional sportsbooks versus prediction-market exchanges are not directly comparable.

For instance, a $100 wager on the Seahawks on DraftKings would result in $100 being risked on the game, and that money is locked until the outcome has been realized. On a prediction market, a person could buy $100 worth of a "yes" contract on the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl at 65 cents, and then an hour later, sell it at 75 cents if the market moves before the game even starts. In that case, a prediction-market user has generated $200 worth of volume, even though they only actually risked $100.

Because traders can enter and exit positions rapidly before an event even occurs, trading volume will almost certainly always be much higher than the actual amount of money at stake.

Kalshi, Robinhood and Polymarket were not immediatley available for comment. (Prediction-market operator Polymarket has a data partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of MarketWatch.)

Still, while the Super Bowl may be the single biggest sporting event for bettors, the biggest multigame event of the year - the March Madness college basketball tournament - is only a month away.

Read on: Seahawks QB Sam Darnold makes 1,500% more than Patriots QB Drake Maye

-Weston Blasi

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-09-26 1857ET