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Prediction Market Statistics 2026: What the $53 billion really measures.
Volume, platforms, traders and forecast accuracy, each read for what it counts.
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In July 2026, Kalshi and Polymarket recorded nearly $53 billion in combined trading volume, more than double May's figure. That sounds like an enormous amount of money changing hands. It isn't a measure of cash spent. The figure counts the notional value of contracts traded, not what buyers paid.
Short answer: prediction market trading on the two biggest platforms grew about 26-fold in a year, to $53 billion in July 2026, with sports doing most of the work. But volume isn't spending, wallets aren't people, and 97% forecast accuracy at market close says little about forecasts made months ahead.
Prediction market statistics at a glance
- $53 billion combined notional volume on Kalshi and Polymarket in July 2026, up from $25.7 billion in May.
- About $80 billion traded on sports across the two platforms in June and July 2026.
- 39% of Polymarket's volume came from Polymarket US in July 2026, up from 4% in January.
- 63% of sampled Polymarket wallets made fewer than 100 trades in six weeks.
- 58% of those wallets gained or lost less than $100 over the same six weeks.
- 97.2% directional accuracy at market close on Kalshi, against 88.3% three months before resolution.
- 0.15% of Kalshi trade takers forecast significantly better than market prices.
- About 1,600 event contracts certified for listing on US exchanges in 2025, against about 5 a year from 2006 to 2020.
Prediction market trading volume is not the same as spending
Combined trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket rose from $25.7 billion in May to $53 billion in July 2026, according to Pew Research Center, an increase of about 106%. A year earlier, in July 2025, monthly volume was $2.02 billion. That is roughly 26-fold growth in twelve months, and Pew puts August at a combined $47 billion, a slight dip.
Pew Research Center, September 2026, using data from The Block. The 106% and 26-fold figures are our arithmetic from Pew's table.
Trading kept growing after the 2024 election
The 2024 US presidential election pushed monthly volume to $4.74 billion that November, before it fell back to about $1.7 billion by February 2025. That could have stayed an election spike. Instead, trading recovered through 2025 and accelerated in 2026: $17.49 billion in January, nearly $53 billion in July. Prediction markets no longer need a presidential election to reach multibillion-dollar months.
What notional volume actually measures
Pew counts the notional value of contracts bought by trade takers, at $1 a contract. Buy a contract for 40 cents that pays $1 if an event happens, and that purchase adds $1 to reported volume, even though you paid 40 cents.
So the headline figure isn't what traders deposited, spent or lost, and it says nothing directly about platform revenue. The growth is real. It's the notional value of contracts traded that grew.
Kalshi leads on volume. Polymarket leads on politics
Kalshi and Polymarket each had around half of combined volume in March 2026. By July, Kalshi had pulled ahead on the back of sports and crypto, while Polymarket stayed far stronger in politics. Treating the two as interchangeable hides that.
They aren't the only platforms either. PredictIt, for one, runs political markets, but Pew's dataset covers only Kalshi and Polymarket, so every comparison here is between those two, not the whole industry.
Kalshi handled nearly three times Polymarket's sports volume. In politics it reversed: Polymarket recorded more than four times Kalshi's. That says which platform attracted more trading in each category, not which had more users. A small group trading constantly can out-trade a large group trading now and then.
Polymarket US grew from 4% to 39% of Polymarket's volume
Polymarket US made up 39% of Polymarket's combined volume in July 2026, up from 4% in January. That creates a comparison trap: some earlier research covers Polymarket International only. Set those figures against newer combined totals and you aren't measuring the same platform. Check the dates and what each figure includes, not just the percentages.
Sports drove about $80 billion in two months
Sports volume topped $58 billion on Kalshi and neared $22 billion on Polymarket in June and July 2026, about $80 billion together, in the months of the FIFA World Cup. For an industry that first drew attention through elections, that's a big shift: sports now supply trading all year round.
Sports, politics and crypto are most of it
A May 2026 Pew analysis found that sports, politics and crypto made up 91% of Kalshi's volume and 90% of Polymarket's since July 2024.
| Category, July 2024 to April 2026 | Kalshi | Polymarket International |
|---|---|---|
| Sports | 80% | 39% |
| Politics | 4% | 32% |
| Crypto | 7% | 20% |
| Everything else | 9% | about 10% |
Pew Research Center, May 2026. "Everything else" is our arithmetic from Pew's three named shares.
Sports dominate Kalshi. Polymarket International is more balanced, with politics and crypto carrying much larger shares. One industry-wide number hides two platforms that trade very differently.
Sports traders trade far more often
In Pew's Polymarket study, accounts with at least 75% of their trades on sports made a median of 69 trades in six weeks. Crypto-focused accounts made 59, and politics-focused accounts 13. Sports run all year, so there's always something to trade. That frequency feeds the volume figures too: one account placing a hundred bets is still one account.
Crypto was $6.1 billion of Kalshi's July
Crypto contracts brought in about $6.1 billion on Kalshi in July 2026. That's significant, but sports were about five times bigger. Crypto is part of the growth story, not the main driver.
63% of sampled Polymarket accounts made fewer than 100 trades
Pew followed 11,989 active Polymarket wallets from May 7 to June 19, 2026. The median account placed 46 trades over 10 active days, and the average trade was worth $6.50. Before reading that as the typical user, it matters who was counted: the wallets were drawn from accounts that traded on 10 high-volume events, and the study covers Polymarket International, not Polymarket US.
Pew Research Center, July 2026. Rounded, so the shares don't add to exactly 100%.
Most sampled accounts made fewer than 100 trades, but 11% made at least 1,000. Those heavy traders were active on 39 of the 42 days. One of them can generate more transactions than dozens of occasional traders, which is why trading volume is a poor stand-in for a user count.
More trading didn't mean more profit
58% of sampled accounts gained or lost less than $100. The average account spent a little over $600 and ended with a net loss of less than $2. The averages hide the edges:
- 7% made more than $1,000.
- 9% lost more than $1,000.
- Among accounts with 1,000 or more trades, 33% lost more than $1,000 and 27% made more than $1,000. The typical one lost about $140.
The sample has limits. It's a selection of Polymarket International wallets, not a representative sample of prediction market users, and one person can run several wallets. It describes how those wallets behaved. It can't tell you how many people use prediction markets.
Kalshi markets were 97.2% right at close. Timing matters
An August 2026 Kalshi Research study of 2,243,741 resolved markets across 11 categories, from Kalshi's launch in 2021 to mid-2026, found directional accuracy rising from 88.3% three months before resolution to 97.2% at market close.
| Measure | Three months out | At close |
|---|---|---|
| Directional accuracy | 88.3% | 97.2% |
| Brier score, lower is better | 0.08 to 0.09 | about 0.02 |
Kalshi Research, August 2026. Headline results exclude the Exotics category.
The 97.2% measures how often the market favoured the eventual outcome at close, when the result may already have been close to certain. It isn't evidence that markets forecast as well months ahead. The Brier scores tell the same story: prices tracked real outcomes more closely as events got nearer and more information came in.
Busier markets were better calibrated
Calibration improved almost steadily with a market's trading volume and its number of unique traders. More traders may bring more information. But that's an association, not proof that adding traders makes a market more accurate, and category and time to resolution mattered too.
0.15% of traders showed real forecasting skill
An October 2026 Kalshi Research study of more than a billion trades, October 2025 to September 2026, found that 0.15% of trade takers forecast significantly better than the market prices they traded against, under a strict statistical test. Market makers were excluded. That doesn't mean 99.85% had no skill, only that few cleared the bar. And skill was largely separate from profit: forecasting well and making money were not the same thing.
Both studies come from Kalshi's own research team, on Kalshi's own data. They're useful, but they don't automatically apply to other platforms.
The 2024 election, and after
In November 2024, combined volume on Kalshi and Polymarket reached about $4.7 billion. That was all categories, not just election contracts, though politics dominated: in October and November 2024, political contracts made up 90% of Kalshi's volume and 65% of Polymarket's, according to Pew.
Politics still matters far more to Polymarket. From January to July 2026, Polymarket's political volume ran at around $2 billion a month, while Kalshi's stayed under $300 million every month. The election made prediction markets a mainstream topic. That doesn't prove it caused the later boom, but the trading didn't disappear when the election was over.
About 1,600 event contracts listed. How many trade is unclear
US exchanges certified about 1,600 event contracts for listing in 2025, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. From 2006 to 2020 they averaged about five a year, and in 2021 it was 131.
A contract certified for listing isn't necessarily one anybody trades. The CFTC's totals say nothing about how many markets were active, how much liquidity they drew, or how many traders took part. They show what's on offer, not demand.
More listings, more regulatory attention
Sports event contracts in particular raise questions about federal derivatives rules and state gambling laws. In March 2026, the CFTC asked for public comment on prediction market oversight, including how to define gaming and which event contracts could be found contrary to the public interest. In June 2026 it followed with a proposed rule setting out how it would decide whether a contract involving gaming or another listed activity crosses that line, with a 90-day review.
What sits behind this
The volume, category and account figures come from Pew Research Center, which used trading data from The Block. The forecasting figures come from Kalshi Research, and the contract counts and rules from the CFTC. We compare their figures across periods and platforms, but we haven't rebuilt the underlying transaction data ourselves. Where we did arithmetic on top, the page says so.
Prediction markets sit next to the other thing we cover. Crypto casinos take bets on games, prediction markets sell contracts on events, and both have grown on crypto rails. For the casino side, see our crypto gambling statistics and how many online casinos there are. If you find an error, tell us and we'll correct it with the date shown.
Prediction market numbers: quick answers
How big are prediction markets in 2026?
Kalshi and Polymarket recorded about $53 billion in combined trading volume in July 2026, according to Pew Research Center. That is the notional value of contracts traded, at $1 each, not what traders spent or what the platforms earned.
Which is bigger, Kalshi or Polymarket?
Kalshi led on volume in July 2026, mostly through sports and crypto contracts. Polymarket recorded far more political trading. The answer depends on the month and on whether Polymarket US is included.
What do people bet on in prediction markets?
Mostly sports, politics and crypto, which together made up 91% of Kalshi's volume and 90% of Polymarket's since July 2024. Sports led in 2026, while politics stayed much more important on Polymarket.
How accurate are prediction markets?
Kalshi Research found directional accuracy of 88.3% three months before resolution and 97.2% at market close. The higher figure comes from prices taken just before the outcome, not forecasts made months earlier.
How many people use prediction markets?
No reliable count exists. Pew studied 11,989 active Polymarket International wallets in 2026, but that was a selected sample, and one person can run several wallets.
Sources
Every figure above traces to one of these.
- Pew Research Center, prediction markets' trading volume doubled between May and July, September 2026pewresearch.org
- Pew Research Center, trading volume on prediction markets has soared, May 2026pewresearch.org
- Pew Research Center, what we know about the typical Polymarket user, July 2026pewresearch.org
- Kalshi Research, calibration in prediction markets, August 2026kalshi.com
- Kalshi Research, who calibrates markets, October 2026kalshi.com
- CFTC, prediction markets advance notice and request for comment, March 2026cftc.gov
- CFTC, proposed rule on event contracts involving enumerated activities, June 2026cftc.gov
- PredictIt, political prediction marketspredictit.org