The 2026 FIFA World Cup did not just break records on the pitch. It shattered them on prediction markets too, with combined trading volumes on Kalshi and Polymarket hitting $44.8 billion in June alone, a 75% jump from May and a figure that makes every prior benchmark look quaint.
To put that in perspective: the 2026 Super Bowl, which itself felt like a watershed moment for prediction markets, generated $1.4 billion in trades. The World Cup did multiples of that in a single week.
The numbers that matter
By late June, World Cup-specific trading volume across both platforms had reached approximately $5.4 billion. Kalshi claimed roughly $2.9 billion of that, including combination bets, while Polymarket’s World Cup markets tallied around $2.5 billion.
Polymarket’s total soccer-related activity, spread across various markets beyond just the headline tournament, crossed $5 billion on its own.
