$1.63B in Super Bowl Prediction Market Volume, $304M on Culture: Full Data Breakdown

Super Bowl 60 between the Seahawks and Patriots, if we’re being sincere, was not the thriller we had been all hoping for. But it did produce the only largest day of buying and selling in prediction markets‘ historical past — and it stress-tested trade infrastructure in ways in which uncovered each the promise and the rising pains of the trade.

DeFi Rate tracked $1.63 billion in mixed buying and selling quantity throughout Kalshi ($833.2M) and Polymarket ($795.3M) on Super Bowl-related markets spanning game-winner contracts, participant props, halftime present predictions, advert markets, celeb look trades, preset combos (parlays), and announcer point out markets. That determine isn’t far off from the $1.71 billion industry estimate for authorized sports activities betting deal with on the 2026 Super Bowl, although importantly, the 2 metrics are very a lot not the identical (extra on that later).

Kalshi individually reported that its complete Super Bowl quantity exceeded $1 billion, a determine that features further markets exterior our monitoring scope, notably customized combos routed by Kalshi’s RFQ (request for quote) system. DeFi Rate’s personal information reveals all Kalshi trades on Super Bowl Sunday alone totaled $871.5M, in line with other industry reporting. That single day helped push Kalshi to a record $2.8 billion week.

Year-over-year progress: two platforms, two fully completely different trajectories

Combining the 2 platforms right into a single YoY quantity would masks the vital narrative that Kalshi and Polymarket truly moved in reverse instructions.

Kalshi’s tracked quantity grew from $27.5 million to $833.2 million — a 2,935% improve by our calculation. Last yr’s total Super Bowl providing consisted of simply 5 completely different markets: game-winner and game-lines contracts ($27.0M throughout 4 markets) and an announcer mentions market ($434,881 throughout 19 strikes). This yr, Kalshi ran 68 contracts throughout sport traces, participant props, halftime, adverts, friends, combos, and mentions. Game traces alone went from $27.0 million to $425.2 million (+1,473%), whereas mentions grew from $435K to $9.0 million (+1,965%). Kalshi self-reported over $1 billion and a pair of,700% progress relayed by CNBC, which probably included further RFQ-routed combo markets exterior our scope. Our information substantiates total YoY Super Bowl quantity progress of at the least that a lot for Kalshi.

Polymarket’s complete, on the opposite hand, declined 32%, from $1.170 billion to $795.3 million. That drop is nearly fully defined by a 38.9% contraction in its season-long champion futures pool ($1.152B → $704.1M), which was the dominant supply of quantity in each years. The decline largely displays the explosive progress of Kalshi, which is now capturing nearly all of sports-related buying and selling curiosity in the U.S. and sure taking a few of Polymarket’s international sports activities quantity in comparison with a yr in the past. The absence of a Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce-driven cultural second and a much less narratively charged matchup in comparison with final yr’s Chiefs-Eagles rematch could have additionally contributed. Polymarket’s non-futures markets, nevertheless, grew from $17.5 million to $91.2 million — up 420%.

Strip out futures fully and the transformation is obvious. Combined non-futures quantity throughout each platforms grew from $45 million to $924 million — a 1,955% improve. One yr in the past, prediction market Super Bowl buying and selling was one large international futures pool at Polymarket and early-stage US-focused sport markets at Kalshi. This yr it was a multi-category ecosystem spanning halftime, adverts, participant props, mentions, combos, and in-game stay markets throughout a quickly rising community of exchanges and distribution channels.

Important notice on what “buying and selling quantity” truly means

$1.6 billion in buying and selling quantity doesn’t imply $1.6 billion was wager on the Super Bowl.

As Dustin Gouker of the Event Horizon newsletter put it: “When you wager $1 at sportsbooks to win a complete return of $10 (together with your unique wager), that’s $1 of deal with. If you wager $1 at Kalshi for a complete return of $10, that’s $10 in quantity. Could that different $9 of quantity be thought of deal with, generally, relying on who your counterparty is? Possibly. But oftentimes it will likely be a market maker that’s enjoying the identical function as the home at a sportsbook. That’s not one thing anybody would take into account ‘deal with.’”

On high of that, merchants can purchase and promote positions a number of instances inside a single market, and every transaction counts as a separate quantity occasion. Take the MVP market ($52.2M on Kalshi): a dealer could have purchased Darnold MVP shares, bought at a revenue as Seattle constructed a lead, after which rotated into longer pictures like a defensive participant or perhaps a operating again (like Kenneth Walker, who truly gained the award). That’s three or 4 quantity occasions from one preliminary stake. The similar goes for in-game moneyline, unfold, over/below totals and so on.

DraftKings supplied its personal reframing in its Q4 2025 shareholder letter. The firm reported $54 billion in sportsbook deal with for fiscal yr 2025 however famous that “complete potential payouts, or capital in danger” throughout all open wagers reached $2.5 trillion as a result of multiplicative nature of parlays — including in a footnote that this determine “is similar to quantity that Predictions operators report.” The implication: prediction market quantity figures will not be as unprecedented as they give the impression of being when measured in opposition to the identical math utilized to sports activities betting motion. It may additionally trace on the extraordinarily high ceiling and room for progress in the prediction market house.

Kalshi’s leisure market: $279 million on halftime and adverts

The most distinctive discovering in our information is simply how a lot of Kalshi’s quantity got here from exterior the sport itself. Of Kalshi’s $833.2 million complete, $279.1 million — a full third — got here from halftime, leisure, adverts, and visitor look markets. Polymarket, by comparability, is nearly fully a game-outcome platform: 93.8% of its quantity sat in Game Winner / Lines contracts.

Here’s how Kalshi’s high non-game markets carried out:

The first-song market was the standout. Traders wagered $113.5 million on which music Bad Bunny would open with, making it Kalshi’s second-largest particular person occasion, behind solely the game-winner contract ($358.8M). The Super Bowl adverts market did $72.2 million. MVP winner drew $52.2 million. Halftime performers pulled $47.3 million. Guest appearances added $39.8 million. One yr in the past, Kalshi’s total Super Bowl providing was a single $27 million sport traces market consisting of 4 contracts and one small announcer point out market. This yr, a market a couple of music alternative generated 4 instances that.

Note: Our “combos” class doesn’t embrace customized parlays executed through Kalshi’s RFQ system, solely preset ones obtainable by Kalshi’s API.

Also excluded from our information pull: Who will seem in a Super Bowl advert ($936,524), Will Bad Bunny say Trump or ICE ($412,419), Will Green Day say MAGA throughout opening ceremony ($492,397), and Who will headline Super Bowl 60 ($4,813,533).

Two platforms, two Super Bowls

The platform composition hole is placing. Polymarket concentrated its liquidity: $704.1 million of its $745.9 million in Game Winner / Lines quantity got here from the season-long champion futures market. Its participant props totaled $12.1 million, halftime did $14.6 million, and adverts barely registered at $1.7 million.

Kalshi, in the meantime, unfold quantity throughout a a lot wider floor space. Its game-winner contract did $358.8 million (lower than half of Polymarket’s futures pool), but it surely generated $425.2 million throughout all sport traces if you add the unfold ($40.5M), complete ($14.4M), quarter and half traces, and margin markets. Player props totaled $99.1 million on Kalshi — 8x Polymarket’s determine. Combo parlays added $15.9 million. Announcer mentions: $9.0 million.

The sport itself probably suppressed in-game buying and selling potential. Tight, back-and-forth video games are well-documented drivers of stay buying and selling quantity; momentum swings create pure entry and exit factors, and lead modifications maintain either side of the e-book energetic. Super Bowl LX was not that sport. Seattle went up 9-0 at halftime on three subject objectives, prolonged to 12-0 by three quarters, and by no means confronted a critical comeback bid. Kalshi constructed vital in-game infrastructure together with seven sequential next-TD markets, quarter-by-quarter traces, stay unfold and complete changes. But a sport that was successfully over by the third quarter restricted how a lot of that infrastructure acquired confused. The next-TD markets mixed for simply $1.02 million throughout all seven occasions, with quantity dropping off sharply after the second TD.

The person engagement hole reinforces the story. Sensor Tower information reported by CNBC confirmed Kalshi hitting practically 2 million each day energetic customers (DAU) on sport day (up 1,100% YoY) in comparison with Polymarket’s 59,000 DAU (up 264%). For context, DraftKings reported 5 million and FanDuel 4.2 million. Kalshi’s Super Bowl week downloads had been up 1,544% YoY per Sensor Tower, and Apptopia data confirmed its January downloads exceeded 3 million — greater than DraftKings and FanDuel mixed in any single month.

Our $1.63 billion complete additionally doesn’t seize the total prediction markets class, although it’s nearer than it’d seem. Several apps that had been stay for the Super Bowl, together with Robinhood, Coinbase, and Gemini, route their trades by Kalshi as futures fee service provider (FCM) companions, which means their quantity is already mirrored in Kalshi’s numbers. What’s genuinely lacking are markets on different CFTC-regulated exchanges: primarily CME Group and Crypto.com | Derivatives North America, which launched their standalone OG predictions app forward of Super Bowl.

DraftKings Predictions, which sources markets from each CME Group and (as of February 6) Crypto.com, doesn’t report event-level quantity. However, DraftKings’ CEO told shareholders that Predictions had “the second most downloads in its class” on Super Bowl Sunday and “delivered 3x its prior document for each day buying and selling quantity,” with sturdy early retention. Polymarket’s U.S.-facing app, in the meantime, solely had a game-winner market up in time, with most of its $795.3 million coming from the worldwide platform (Polymarket doesn’t escape home vs. worldwide quantity).

Announcer mentions draw $9 million: 1,965% YoY surge

Kalshi’s announcer mention market generated $9.0 million throughout 37 particular person strike markets, a 1,965% improve from final yr’s $434,881 throughout 19 markets. Only 16 of 37 strikes resolved Yes, a 43.2% hit price.

The most-traded strikes inform their very own story. “What a Catch” led at $751K (No), adopted by “Roughing the Passer” at $724K (No), “Safety” at $699K (Yes — the sport’s first rating was certainly a security), “Lombardi” at $680K (No), and “Late Hit” at $655K (No). “Trump” was the sixth most-traded point out at $600K, resolving No (a repeat from final yr, when “Donald Trump 3+ instances” was additionally a point out strike and likewise resolved No). “Taylor Swift 5+ instances” was a 2025 strike too (additionally No), a element that captures how these markets mirror the cultural second of every Super Bowl. Other notable strikes: “Gatorade” ($556K, No), “No Good” ($512K, Yes), “Portnoy” ($250K, No), “Marshawn Lynch” ($213K, No), and “Emerald City Route Artist” ($312K, No). See high strikes by quantity beneath.

Growing pains: Deposit failures, decision disputes and extra insider buying and selling drama

The $1.6 billion quantity is spectacular, however the Super Bowl additionally uncovered actual infrastructure and governance gaps that the trade wants to handle.

The most instant subject was Kalshi’s deposit system buckling under load. Complaints surfaced shortly after 5 p.m. ET through Discord and X and continued by the sport. Users reported deposits deducted from financial institution accounts however not credited to their Kalshi balances, in some circumstances for over an hour, properly previous the home windows they’d wished to commerce. I personally tried to deposit quarter-hour earlier than kickoff and my deposit went by throughout halftime.

Co-founder Luana Lopes Lara acknowledged the delays on X, and Kalshi later reimbursed processing charges and added credit to affected customers. For a platform that spent months on aggressive acquisition and onboarded PayPal and Venmo days earlier than the sport, the timing was brutal — and nearly actually left volume on the table.

Then got here the Cardi B decision fiasco. The rapper appeared on stage throughout Bad Bunny’s halftime present, dancing alongside Karol G, Pedro Pascal, and Jessica Alba. To most viewers, she carried out. But Kalshi’s contract guidelines contained contradictory language — defining “performs” to incorporate dancing in one clause whereas excluding “dancing or showing on stage with out singing/enjoying devices” in one other. Kalshi invoked Rule 6.3(c) to settle the $47.3 million performer market on the final traded value ($0.74 No / $0.26 Yes) slightly than declaring a winner. Polymarket resolved its equal market as Yes. At least one dealer filed a complaint with the CFTC alleging Kalshi violated the Commodity Exchange Act.

The halftime markets additionally attracted insider trading allegations. Multiple X customers flagged suspicious buying and selling patterns throughout accounts that appeared to revenue from advance information of halftime plans. The ordeal highlights a structural vulnerability for leisure markets the place setlists, visitor appearances, and manufacturing particulars are recognized to dozens of individuals properly earlier than showtime. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour acknowledged the priority on CNBC however argued the platform applies the identical enforcement framework because the NYSE and Nasdaq. That final half is contentious, although Kalshi has been ramping up integrity monitoring infrastructure and has stated the trade “ran over 200 investigations and froze related accounts” in the previous yr, even referring a small subset to legislation enforcement.

None of that is disqualifying. After all, sportsbooks have had their very own Super Bowl uptime crises. But the deposit failures and Cardi B dispute hand ammunition to state regulators already combating Kalshi in courtroom, and erode belief with the informal customers Kalshi is spending closely to accumulate.

Super Bowl 60 recap: Growing pains include outsized progress

The prediction market Super Bowl is now a $1.6 billion occasion, at the least in phrases of buying and selling quantity. And it’s solely the second yr these platforms have supplied significant sports activities occasion contracts across the sport. Kalshi proved {that a} third of a serious sporting occasion’s quantity can come from game-adjacent cultural markets, particularly in a one-sided defensive contest.

The infrastructure held up properly sufficient to course of $871 million in a single day, however buckled in ways in which matter. And the decision disputes round leisure markets level to governance challenges that can solely intensify as quantity scales. Billion-dollar Super Bowl buying and selling quantity is the brand new ground. The greater query is how high the ceiling goes.

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