The World Cup delivered a massive summer for sports betting and prediction-market platforms, but executives across the industry are preparing for the real fight: the NFL season.
During second-quarter earnings calls this week, executives from Penn Entertainment, BetMGM, and FanDuel parent Flutter Entertainment all touched on the high levels of activity their platforms have seen this summer due to the World Cup. The same goes for prediction-market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. Analysts at Jefferies noted the tournament generated a “record $20 billion” in prediction-market volumes, “by far the single biggest” event for prediction markets to date, “far exceeding volumes” from the previous largest event, the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
But the crown jewel of the U.S. sports betting calendar, the NFL season, is right around the corner. The preseason begins next week, and the regular season kicks off Sept. 9.
Penn Entertainment CEO Jay Snowden said on the company’s earnings call Thursday that the NFL season is expected to bring “quite the arms race this year.”
He noted that many prediction-market platforms really launched NFL event contracts only around Super Bowl LX, a game which by itself saw more than $1 billion in prediction-market trading volume across platforms including Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, Crypto.com, Underdog, and others.
