Prediction markets just crushed traditional sportsbooks in a massive $50 billion World Cup breakout
COINDESK ·
The World Cup did not just bring retail bettors to prediction markets. It brought Wall Street too. DRW, the Chicago-based trading giant, has been building a dedicated prediction market desk targeting Polymarket and Kalshi , applying cross-platform arbitrage techniques honed in derivatives markets. Before the tournament, gaming research firm Eilers and Krejcik projected U.S. legal sportsbooks would handle between $2.8 billion and $4.3 billion across the 104 matches. Those figures now look conservative. Operators across the board have said the tournament exceeded their most optimistic internal forecasts , and final state-level reporting, which lags by weeks, has not yet come in. The anecdotal evidence is striking enough. Monday's U.S. vs Belgium round-of-16 match became the most-bet soccer game in the history of several major American books. BetMGM said it drew more bets than any 2026 College Football Playoff game bar the championship , the men's college basketball final or any title-series game from the NBA, NHL or MLB. "This World Cup has been record-type handle stuff for us this whole time," BetMGM's Christian Cipollini told ESPN. DraftKings reported handle running at approximately five times its 2022 levels. The conditions all pointed that way: 39 states now have legal mobile sports betting, up from 19 in 2022, North American hosting meant prime-time kickoffs, and the U.S. team's run to the round of 16 generated the kind of domestic interest soccer has never previously sustained. Caesars said 81% of its handle on the U.S. knockout match was on the Americans to advance . Globally, total World Cup wagering is projected to exceed $50 billion.
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Prediction markets and sports betting volume exceeded $50 billion during this World Cup, far surpassing initial forecasts. With legal mobile betting expanding to 39 states in the U.S. and favorable time zones for North American hosting, trading volumes for major firms like DraftKings surged 5x compared to 2022. Large Wall Street trading firm DRW has also entered the prediction market, blurring the lines between financial and betting markets.
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- Online Betting — Expanded legal betting across U.S. states and World Cup popularity drove a 5x increase in volume for major players like DraftKings, with market size exceeding $50 billion and profitability clearly improving.
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The rapid expansion of the regulatory framework in the U.S. has acted as a primary catalyst for this growth. The convergence of professional financial institutions entering the space suggests that prediction markets are increasingly viewed as sophisticated hedging tools rather than mere speculation.
Furthermore, the integration of real-time data and the accessibility of mobile platforms have significantly lowered barriers to entry, creating a sustained upward trajectory for sector revenue.
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