[ { "slug": "prediction-markets-record-september-nfl", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/prediction-markets-record-september-nfl.html", "title": "Prediction markets near $20B in record late-September week as football drives volume", "kicker": "MARKET DATA", "category": "Market Data", "date": "2026-10-03", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Kalshi, Polymarket US and Polymarket International combined for about $19.46 billion in the week ended Sept. 27, with football season driving record weekly and quarterly trading figures.", "body": "Prediction markets closed September 2026 at record volume, powered by the start of the NFL season. For the week ended September 27, trading across Kalshi, Polymarket US and Polymarket International reached approximately $19.46 billion, up 3.9% from the prior week, according to volume tracker DefiRate.\n\nKalshi drove most of the total. The CFTC-regulated exchange logged a record $15.66 billion in weekly volume for the week ended September 27, a 2.6% gain, per DefiRate, and set a new single-day high of $3.24 billion that Sunday. Friday through Sunday alone generated about $8.60 billion, more than the first four days of the week combined, DefiRate reported.\n\nThe opening NFL weekend had already set the pace. Prediction markets had their best two days ever on the first Saturday and Sunday of the NFL season, generating at least $5.83 billion, according to Aldrin Research, as cited by Barron's. Ninety-one percent of that volume was tied to sports and combo trading, and $4.89 billion of it took place on Kalshi, per Barron's. Analysts at Jefferies estimated Polymarket US saw $404 million in Sunday trading, Barron's reported, though the platform's data was not yet available at the time.\n\nPolymarket US grew fastest among the venues. Its weekly volume jumped 21% to $2.83 billion for the week ended September 27, lifting its share of the three-venue total to 14.6% from 12.5%, DefiRate reported. Nearly all of that growth came from combination contracts, which surged 44.4% to $1.53 billion and now account for more than half of all Polymarket US volume, per DefiRate. Meanwhile Polymarket International moved the other way, falling 13.5% to $964.1 million in the September 21-27 week, per DefiRate.\n\nFootball dominates the leaderboards even as the volume mix broadens. In NFL Week 1, tracked NFL prediction-market volume topped $1 billion across the major venues, DefiRate reported. For the week ended September 27, all 10 of Polymarket US's largest individual markets were football, led by Colts-Chiefs at $27.67 million, though those 10 markets together accounted for just 4.4% of the platform's volume, per DefiRate. On Polymarket US, the NFL was the largest identifiable sports category at $267 million, with tennis right behind at $263.1 million, DefiRate reported.\n\nTrade counts tell the same story at quarterly scale. Prediction markets logged about 1.1 billion trades in the third quarter of 2026 through September 25, a record, TokenPost reported. That was more than twice the roughly 490 million trades of the first quarter and above the second quarter's 709 million, with Kalshi generating most of the increase, per TokenPost.\n\nThe influx of mainstream money is reshaping venue economics. DraftKings more than doubled its weekly prediction-market volume for two weeks in a row heading into the NFL season, Barron's reported, and ran advertising that denigrated the user experience on Kalshi. FanDuel and other sports betting operators are market making on Kalshi, Barron's reported, and FanDuel's parent company Flutter said in its second-quarter earnings report that it expects to generate $50 million in market-making revenue in the second half of this year.", "tags": [ "NFL", "volume", "sports contracts", "Kalshi", "Polymarket" ], "status": "reported", "featured": true }, { "slug": "coinbase-prediction-markets-early", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/coinbase-prediction-markets-early.html", "title": "Coinbase blames Kalshi for botched Michigan settlement, pays customers twice", "kicker": "INDUSTRY", "category": "Industry", "date": "2026-10-03", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Coinbase blamed Kalshi for a botched settlement on the Western Michigan-Michigan game and said it would pay affected customers in full without clawing back mistaken payouts.", "body": "Coinbase's prediction markets business was drawn into a public settlement dispute last month, after a mistaken result on a college football game left the exchange pointing at its partner. CNN correspondent Marshall Cohen reported on September 7 that Coinbase customers were caught up in a settlement error tied to the Western Michigan-Michigan game, as ReadWrite reported. Coinbase's statement blamed the exchange that lists the contracts: \"An erroneous settlement by Kalshi led to certain positions being underpaid.\"\n\nThe error grew out of one of the stranger finishes of the college football season. No. 16 Michigan trailed Western Michigan 12-7 when officials restored one second to the clock after a review, and quarterback Bryce Underwood then hit JJ Buchanan for a 47-yard Hail Mary touchdown that produced a 13-12 Michigan victory, according to ReadWrite's account. Kalshi had already settled its \"Western Michigan vs. Michigan\" market on the initial result, treating Western Michigan as the winner, with ReadWrite estimating the market's trading volume at about $18.6 million.\n\nKalshi admitted it had \"wrongly and prematurely settled\" the market, Cohen reported, and the venue reversed the incorrect payouts, reimbursed traders mistakenly treated as losers and paid out positions matching Michigan's official win. \"We corrected the result to a Michigan win, making sure all Kalshi customers got paid out correctly.\" Coinbase took a different route. The company said it would credit affected customers with the full amount their winning positions should have paid, while letting customers who received money from the earlier, incorrect settlement keep it. \"Payouts already made under the original incorrect settlement will stand and will not be reversed or recovered,\" the statement said.\n\nThe episode came roughly eight months after Coinbase entered the prediction markets business. On January 28, 2026, the exchange rolled out its prediction market platform to US users in partnership with Kalshi, CoinDesk reported, offering event-based yes-or-no contracts on elections, sports, collectibles and economic indicators. The platform, announced in December 2025, uses contracts whose prices reflect market-implied probabilities, according to CoinDesk, and marked Coinbase's latest move toward becoming what the company calls an \"everything exchange.\"\n\nThe structure behind the product explains how the blame landed where it did. Coinbase acts as the distributor, while Kalshi provides the contracts, the exchange and the liquidity. When settlement failed, the apology reached customers through Coinbase, with screenshots showing the company telling users it was \"manually recalculating the balances for all affected accounts,\" per Cohen's reporting. The fix, though, was shaped by two different companies: Kalshi clawed back the wrongly paid positions, while Coinbase absorbed the cost of paying twice rather than recovering money from its own users.\n\nFor the industry, the incident is a case study in distribution risk. Brokerages and apps that carry third-party event contracts get the customer relationship, and they also get the reputational hit when the underlying venue misfires. Coinbase's decision to eat the double payout kept the damage on its own balance sheet rather than its users' accounts, a choice that other distributors watching the space will measure against their own economics.", "tags": [ "Coinbase", "Kalshi", "event contracts", "settlement" ], "status": "reported", "featured": false }, { "slug": "white-label-prediction-market-infrastructure-race", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/white-label-prediction-market-infrastructure-race.html", "title": "Plaee partners with ProphetX as white-label prediction infrastructure gains ground", "kicker": "INDUSTRY", "category": "Industry", "date": "2026-10-02", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Plaee signed a technology partnership with CFTC-regulated ProphetX, announced September 30, letting operators launch prediction markets on white-label rails. The deal follows the Fanatics-Crypto.com model and contrasts with DraftKings' owned DKeX exchange.", "body": "Plaee, the white-label prediction-market technology provider led by co-founder and CEO Leon Okun, has signed a strategic technology partnership with ProphetX, America's first federally regulated sports-native prediction market, the companies announced via PR Newswire on September 30. Under the agreement, ProphetX will be integrated as a regulated exchange within Plaee's Prediction Trader interface and PlaeeOS backend, and the integration is currently in beta, according to the announcement.\n\nThrough Plaee's single integration, operators can add prediction markets to their existing product line or launch a standalone prediction-market distribution channel within weeks, the announcement said. Plaee's platform combines the Prediction Trader white-label trading interface with PlaeeOS, its CRM, personalization, and monetization engine, according to the announcement. ProphetX runs a Partner Distribution Program that handles clearing, custody, market operations, and the core regulatory and operational functions of a CFTC-regulated exchange, so Plaee's operator clients can reach regulated exchange infrastructure without becoming a DCM or DCO themselves, the companies said.\n\n'Plaee was built to remove the three biggest hurdles for operators: product development, access to liquidity and time-to-market,' Okun said in the announcement. 'Operators will immediately benefit from ProphetX's breadth and depth of markets, while ProphetX will enjoy greater distribution; all from our single integration.' ProphetX co-founder and CCO Jake Benzaquen said Plaee 'has built real infrastructure for distribution operators who want to offer access to prediction markets without taking on the regulatory and tech build themselves.'\n\nThe partnership follows the template Fanatics Markets set when it launched in December 2025 through Crypto.com Derivatives North America, a CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse, Live Bitcoin News reported. Fanatics retains complete control of the user interface while Crypto.com maintains custody, clearance, and risk management through its regulated derivatives entity, according to the same report. Fanatics Markets is available in 24 states on iOS and Android, and in April the company added Combos, a product bundling multiple outcomes into a single contract, ReadWrite reported.\n\nDraftKings took the opposite route and bought the rails. The company acquired Railbird Technologies, a CFTC-regulated exchange, in October 2025 and launched DKeX, its proprietary prediction-markets exchange, on June 26, 2026 inside the DraftKings: Sports and Casino app, BettingPros reported. For the week ending June 21, DraftKings Predictions hit roughly $3.4 billion in annualized consumer volume and about $11.3 billion in annualized total trading volume, according to the same report. DKeX replaced third-party infrastructure DraftKings had previously used, giving the company control over contract listings, trade economics, and launch speed, BettingPros reported.\n\nRent the rails or buy them, both models answer the same constraint: launching a prediction-market venue requires exchange technology, market-making, regulatory structuring, and resolution operations, and most consumer brands have distribution but not the machinery. The pattern suggests the next wave of launches will come less from new exchange startups than from established brands plugging into regulated rails through white-label deals like Plaee's.", "tags": [ "Plaee", "white-label", "infrastructure", "DraftKings", "FanDuel" ], "status": "developing", "featured": false }, { "slug": "senate-hearing-event-contracts", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/senate-hearing-event-contracts.html", "title": "Senate scrutiny of event contracts builds: a Texas hearing and a demand for a federal one", "kicker": "REGULATION", "category": "Regulation", "date": "2026-10-02", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Texas lawmakers grilled Kalshi at a September 15 hearing, and all 11 Senate Banking Committee Democrats are demanding a public federal hearing on prediction markets.", "body": "The Texas Senate State Affairs Committee held a hearing in Austin on September 15 to examine prediction markets, pressing Kalshi and the American Gaming Association on sports contracts, election markets and consumer protections, according to Prediction News.\n\nRobert DeNault, Kalshi's legal counsel, testified that the platform offers trading in event contracts, also known as swaps, and senators debated whether venues like Kalshi function as derivatives markets or constitute sports gambling, per the report. Committee Chairman Bryan Hughes described prediction markets as potential loopholes in Texas's 1903 gambling ban, according to esports.gg. American Gaming Association vice president Tres York criticized the platforms, arguing they bypass state-level policy decisions and could expose young Texans to sports gambling under the guise of financial investing, per esports.gg. DeNault responded that prediction markets are fundamentally different from gambling because they operate as financial exchanges under the regulatory oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, per esports.gg.\n\nThe hearing traces back to July 2026, when Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick released his 2026 interim legislative charges. One directive, titled 'Closing Gambling Loopholes,' told the State Affairs Committee to study how prediction markets use federal law to get around Texas gambling prohibitions, and to examine the relationship between federally regulated derivative markets and state-prohibited gambling, recommending ways to protect the integrity of Texas elections and sports, per esports.gg. Because Texas holds no regular legislative session in 2026, the hearing serves as groundwork for the 90th Legislature, which is slated to begin January 12, 2027.\n\nEight days later, the fight moved to Washington. All 11 Democrats on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee wrote to Chairman Tim Scott on September 23 asking him to hold a public hearing on prediction markets, per Unchained. The letter was led by ranking member Elizabeth Warren and Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, and it followed a September 18 Punchbowl News report that the committee had planned a closed, Republican-only roundtable with Kalshi in attendance. Committee Republicans met with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour at 10 a.m. on September 23, The Block reported, per Unchained.\n\nThe Democrats argued that some prediction market products raise issues within the Banking Committee's oversight. Event contracts pegged to corporate performance indicators 'could meet the definition of security-based swaps that would be subject to SEC regulation,' they wrote, per Unchained. Banking oversees the Securities and Exchange Commission, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has claimed the lead role over prediction markets, answers to the House and Senate Agriculture committees. The senators asked that Congress examine the sector 'on a bipartisan basis in a public hearing' and 'not behind closed doors in a Republican-only, industry-friendly roundtable.' They also wrote that experts warn prediction markets are prone to encourage manipulation and insider trading, and that early research found profits 'highly concentrated in a small fraction of users, while the majority lose money.'\n\nScott said in a statement to The Block that he brought the group together 'to better understand the opportunities and challenges presented by securities-linked products,' per Unchained. 'My goal is to ensure that America leads in financial innovation while protecting investors and providing the regulatory clarity these emerging markets need,' he added. Kalshi did not immediately respond to The Block's request for comment.\n\nThe push for hearings is part of a wider Washington squeeze, per Unchained. A day before the Banking Committee letter, CFTC staff warned exchanges that contracts settling on what a named person says or does may be presumed susceptible to manipulation. On April 30, the Senate unanimously barred senators and their staff from trading on prediction markets. For venues, the message is that the industry's Washington engagement is becoming a permanent cost of doing business: what happens next depends on whether Chairman Scott schedules a public hearing and on what bills emerge in Texas in the 2027 session.", "tags": [ "Senate", "CFTC", "event contracts", "federal regulation" ], "status": "reported", "featured": false }, { "slug": "polymarket-us-reentry-polymarket-us", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/polymarket-us-reentry-polymarket-us.html", "title": "Polymarket's US re-entry runs through polymarket.us as the federal picture evolves", "kicker": "REGULATION", "category": "Regulation", "date": "2026-10-02", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Polymarket.com stays view-only for Americans while the company pursues US re-entry through its regulated polymarket.us venue.", "body": "Polymarket's path back to the United States runs through polymarket.us, its domestic trading venue, while polymarket.com remains view-only for US visitors. The split setup reflects the company's strategy of pursuing US re-entry through regulated channels rather than relitigating past enforcement actions.\n\nThe view-only status of the main site is a visible reminder of the company's history with US regulators. American users can browse markets and prices on polymarket.com but cannot trade there; domestic trading is directed to polymarket.us, which operates under the federal framework that governs US derivatives venues.\n\nThe re-entry effort hinges on the CFTC's Part 40 self-certification process, the same mechanism other venues use to list new contracts. Filings under Part 40 are public and typically precede new listings, which makes them the earliest observable signal of what Polymarket plans to offer American traders.\n\nMarket watchers are focused on which contract categories appear first on the US venue. Sports and politics contracts carry the most regulatory sensitivity, and the sequencing of listings will reveal how aggressively Polymarket intends to test the boundaries of its US permissions.\n\nThe competitive context has shifted while Polymarket was away. Kalshi, Robinhood, Fanatics Markets, and others have built substantial US event-contract businesses, so Polymarket is re-entering a market that is far more crowded than the one it left. Its global brand and liquidity are advantages, but domestic incumbents have a head start on distribution and regulatory relationships.\n\nThe two-site structure also creates interesting data dynamics. With Americans able to view but not trade on polymarket.com, the global order books reflect international sentiment while polymarket.us develops its own domestic liquidity. Over time, traders expect the two pools to inform each other, though regulatory walls keep them formally separate. How quickly the US venue builds depth comparable to its global sibling is the metric competitors are watching most closely.\n\nFor the industry, a full Polymarket US return would be the single biggest competitive event on the horizon. Until the filings and listings materialize, the re-entry remains a work in progress, and the Part 40 docket is the place to watch.", "tags": [ "Polymarket", "CFTC", "US regulation" ], "status": "developing", "featured": false }, { "slug": "midterm-contracts-2026-listings", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/midterm-contracts-2026-listings.html", "title": "2026 midterm trading tops $750M as venues and media lean in", "kicker": "MARKET DATA", "category": "Market Data", "date": "2026-10-01", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Kalshi and Polymarket have handled more than $750 million in combined 2026 election trading, per CNN, as CBS News names Kalshi its midterm prediction-market sponsor.", "body": "Kalshi and Polymarket have handled more than $750 million in combined trading on 2026 U.S. election markets, according to CNN, turning the midterms into a major volume cycle for the prediction market industry, per Bonus's coverage of the CNN reporting.\n\nCNN said the most active contracts now span high-profile state and federal races. On Kalshi, the biggest markets included Los Angeles mayor winner at $96.9 million in volume, Florida Republican governor nominee at $71 million, and California governor winner at $52.5 million, per the report. On Polymarket, the most-watched contracts included balance of power in Congress after the midterms at $13.5 million, which party will win the U.S. House at $12.2 million, and which party will win the U.S. Senate at $5 million, per the report.\n\nAs of October 1, 2026, both venues are pricing a Democratic Congress, per NextPredict. Polymarket, which recently launched its Midterms Hub, gives Democrats a 93% chance of controlling the House and 63% for the Senate as of October 1, 2026. Kalshi tells much the same story: its Senate contract put Democrats at roughly 64% as of October 1, 2026, while Democrats were priced as 91.6% favorites to take the House, per the same report.\n\nThe structure explains why markets are far more confident about the House than the Senate. Republicans hold the Senate 53-47, counting the two independents who caucus with Democrats, so Democrats need a net gain of four seats for outright control, and all 435 House seats are being contested, per NextPredict. Kalshi's 'blue wave' contract, requiring at least 218 Democratic House seats and 49 Senate seats, reached 83% in September, per NextPredict. Kalshi's Senate control market alone had attracted nearly $42.4 million in notional volume as of October 1, 2026.\n\nThe scale is already historic. Trading on the 2026 midterms had reached $133 million by August, exceeding the $92.4 million traded on congressional races during 2024, according to the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, per NextPredict.\n\nMedia institutions are treating market prices as election infrastructure. CBS News has partnered with Kalshi to integrate its market data into coverage of the 2026 midterm elections, designating Kalshi the network's prediction market sponsor, the arrangement announced on CBS Mornings by Anthony Salvanto, executive director of elections and surveys at CBS News, per SCCG's report of World Casino News. The agreement will incorporate Kalshi forecasts alongside polling, reporting and analysis for congressional control and key races, including contests in Texas and Maine. It follows Kalshi partnerships with CNN in December 2025, a multiyear exclusive with CNBC, and an agreement with The Associated Press in March for official vote counts and race calls, per the report.\n\nBenjamin Freeman, Kalshi's head of politics growth, told CNN that election prediction markets are 'well-calibrated' and can absorb new information faster than polls, per the Bonus report. A Polymarket spokesperson told CNN the platform offers 'transparent, accurate, real-time information' and called it 'an antidote to the disinformation poisoning public dialogue.'\n\nElection officials have raised concerns alongside the volume. Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's top election official, said he wishes election markets 'would go away' and described post-primary disinformation in Los Angeles as 'destructive,' per CNN via Bonus. CNN also reported that the first public political insider-trading cases surfaced in April, when Kalshi fined and suspended three minor candidates for betting on their own races, and that Laurie Buckhout, the Republican nominee in a North Carolina House race, apologized and paid a fine of about $2,600. A separate dispute over Kalshi's settlement of an Alaska top-four Senate primary market raised questions about how clearly election contracts are written and resolved, per the report.", "tags": [ "midterms", "political contracts", "CFTC", "listings" ], "status": "developing", "featured": false }, { "slug": "hyperliquid-hip-4-outcome-markets", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/hyperliquid-hip-4-outcome-markets.html", "title": "Hyperliquid opens HIP-4 outcome markets to outside builders", "kicker": "VENUES", "category": "Venues", "date": "2026-10-01", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Hyperliquid opened its HIP-4 prediction-market framework to outside builders in late August, after reporting around $100 million in outcome volume in its first full month. Volume roughly tripled after the change, though most of it ran through a rebate campaign.", "body": "Hyperliquid's HIP-4 outcome-market framework entered its next phase in late August, when a network upgrade opened prediction-market deployment to outside builders, according to Datawallet's September 2026 statistics report. The framework had debuted on mainnet on May 2, 2026, adding fully collateralized binary outcome contracts to a venue best known for perpetual futures, BSCN reported. The upgrade brought on-chain prediction markets directly into the same account where traders already run perpetual futures and spot positions, according to the same report.\n\nEach market poses a yes-or-no question, and traders take YES or NO positions using USDH as collateral, with the winning side settling at 1 USDH per unit and the losing side at zero, BSCN reported. The price of a YES token at any moment represents the market's implied probability of the event occurring, the report added. Positions are fully collateralized, carry no liquidation risk and no funding rate, and opening a position costs zero fees, according to BSCN.\n\nHyperliquid reported around $100 million in outcome volume during the framework's first full month, Datawallet reported, while researcher defioasis.eth counted 6.05 million contracts traded in the first 24 hours, as reported by BSCN. The venue has since moved beyond crypto into macro events: its first US macro market let traders take positions on the May 2026 CPI year-over-year print, settling June 10 off official Bureau of Labor Statistics data, BSCN reported. Planned categories for expansion include politics, sports, macro data releases, crypto events, and entertainment, according to the same report.\n\nThe important change is who can build. Cointelegraph reported on July 20 that Hyperliquid plans to require outside deployers to stake 500,000 HYPE, worth about $30.4 million at the time, to launch permissionless prediction markets under HIP-4. The stake stays locked for six months and can be slashed by a validator vote if markets are poorly defined, incorrectly settled, or left unsettled for more than a week, Cointelegraph reported. Each deployer is initially limited to 100 outcomes, and deployers can set fees of up to 50% on their own markets, according to Datawallet.\n\nWithin days of the August 29 upgrade, two builders, Outcome and Skew, had posted the required stake and started deploying markets from seven validator-approved templates, Datawallet reported. Volume roughly tripled after permissionless deployment began, but about 85% of it flowed through Outcome during its $1 million rebate campaign in the weeks after the August 29 upgrade, which paid traders around one cent per dollar traded, Datawallet reported. Whether the activity persists once rebates end is the first real test of HIP-4 demand, Datawallet noted.\n\nHyperliquid has made the competitive intent explicit: BSCN reported that HIP-4's zero-fee structure directly targets Polymarket and Kalshi for on-chain prediction market volume. The upgrade integrates with Hyperliquid's existing portfolio margin system, letting traders manage spot, perpetuals, and outcome contracts from a single unified margin account, BSCN reported. Validators oversee deployment and settlement decisions through automated newsfeed infrastructure, according to the same report.\n\nGaps remain. Sports templates used in testing have yet to reach mainnet, and US access remains blocked, Datawallet reported. Validators themselves expect to launch fewer than ten canonical markets each year, according to the same report, which puts most of HIP-4's future market supply in the hands of the outside builders now staking HYPE.\n\nThe precedent is Hyperliquid's earlier HIP-3 framework for builder-deployed perpetuals, where third-party markets supply roughly 30% of all Hyperliquid trading, according to Datawallet's 2026 statistics. For the prediction-market industry, the permissionless opening turns one of crypto's largest derivatives venues into a platform where third parties run outcome markets on its rails rather than a single-house product.", "tags": [ "Hyperliquid", "HIP-4", "USDH", "onchain" ], "status": "confirmed", "featured": false }, { "slug": "robinhood-prediction-markets-nfl-growth", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/robinhood-prediction-markets-nfl-growth.html", "title": "Piper Sandler sees Robinhood prediction markets nearing a $1B annualized pace on NFL volume", "kicker": "VENUES", "category": "Venues", "date": "2026-09-30", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Robinhood's prediction markets generated $156M in Q2, and Piper Sandler sees roughly $320M more from September through December on NFL-season volume.", "body": "Prediction markets have become one of Robinhood's most productive product lines on a per-user basis. Fewer than 2 million of the company's 28 million funded customers had ever placed an event contract as of the second quarter of 2026, yet that roughly 7% of the base generated $156 million in prediction market revenue in a single quarter, Tech Times reported, citing Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Cyprys. Cyprys upgraded Robinhood to Overweight from Equal Weight on September 1 and raised his price target from $124 to $150, implying roughly 43% upside from Monday's close, per the report.\n\nThe quarter was a milestone. Robinhood generated $156 million from event contracts in Q2 2026, topping both its $100 million in crypto trading revenue and its equities line for the first time, according to Prediction News, citing The Block and CEO Vlad Tenev. Prediction markets had become Robinhood's third-largest transaction revenue line in just five quarters, per CNBC, Prediction News reported.\n\nPiper Sandler's football-season forecast goes further. Analyst Patrick Moley projected that Robinhood users will trade about 29.7 billion event contracts from September through December 2026, generating roughly $320 million in revenue, or approximately $960 million on an annualized basis, Traders Union reported, citing CNBC's coverage of the note. Moley raised his 2026 and 2027 earnings estimates by 5% and 7% and lifted his price target to $145 from $135 with an overweight rating, per the report. Separately, BTIG said September volume was tracking toward $5.5 billion, according to Prediction News.\n\nThe economics per contract have improved since last season. Rothera, Robinhood's prediction-market joint venture with Susquehanna International Group, holds both a CFTC-licensed Designated Contract Market and a Designated Clearing Organization, Tech Times reported, after Robinhood's January 2026 acquisition of MIAXdx. CFO Shiv Verma told the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in May that vertical integration means controlling \"the whole product and engineering\" and \"the better economics,\" per the report. Rothera processed more than 3.5 billion contracts between its June 4 launch and the end of Q2, according to Robinhood disclosures cited by Tech Times, and Moley estimated about 23% of prediction market volume had shifted to Rothera from Kalshi since June, Traders Union reported. Robinhood management also confirmed that Rothera received CFTC approval to offer football contracts covering wins and spreads, per CNBC's coverage of the Piper Sandler note.\n\nThe comparisons point to football as the test. Q2's $156 million was driven substantially by the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which produced peak $4.8 billion single-day volume across all prediction market platforms on June 12, Tech Times reported, citing The Block. July's 6.1 billion event contracts were roughly 20 times the July 2025 level, the report said. Bernstein analysts projected full-year 2026 prediction market revenue of $586 million, up 286% from $150 million in 2025, calling prediction markets \"the largest incremental driver\" of transaction-based revenue growth, per Tech Times. With $260 million confirmed through the first two quarters, reaching that target requires about $326 million in the second half, driven largely by the NFL season and November's midterm elections.\n\nThe regulatory backdrop is unresolved. On August 28, the Ninth Circuit ruled that sports event contracts are not \"swaps\" under the Commodity Exchange Act, a decision Tech Times described as the industry's most significant legal setback, allowing states to apply gambling laws to Robinhood, Kalshi and Crypto.com sports contracts. New Jersey filed a petition on September 2 asking the Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit's opposite ruling, per Tech Times. As of early September, Polymarket implied roughly a 45% chance of Supreme Court acceptance by December 31, Tech Times reported, citing CasinoBeats.\n\nFor Morgan Stanley, the core thesis is penetration, not the current run rate. The remaining 26 million funded customers, about 93% of the base, had never traded a single event contract as of Q2 2026, per Tech Times. Whether football converts them at anything like the intensity of the World Cup crowd is the question the next two quarters will answer.", "tags": [ "Robinhood", "NFL", "sports contracts" ], "status": "reported", "featured": true }, { "slug": "onchain-venues-limitless-growth", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/onchain-venues-limitless-growth.html", "title": "Onchain venues carve out a growing share of prediction-market volume", "kicker": "MARKET DATA", "category": "Market Data", "date": "2026-09-29", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Limitless grew roughly 15x from $109 million in September 2025 to $1.66 billion in April 2026 on Base, and its US entity has applied to the CFTC for regulated exchange status.", "body": "Limitless Exchange, the onchain venue where Acton Labs serves as an attribution partner, has become one of the clearest beneficiaries of crypto-native prediction-market growth. (Disclosure: Acton Labs is the parent company of The Agent Bets.) The platform runs on Coinbase's Base blockchain and crossed $1 billion in monthly notional volume in early 2026, Bitget reported.\n\nThe US expansion is now formal. Limitless Markets US, LLC has applied to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to operate as a designated contract market, with the CFTC posting the application as pending with a May 1 filing date, DeFi Rate reported. DCM status would allow the company to run a federally regulated exchange for futures, options, or event contracts, the same designation used by operators including Kalshi, Crypto.com Derivatives North America, ForecastEx, and Polymarket US, according to the same report.\n\nThe filing follows steep onchain growth. Dune analytics show Limitless at roughly $3.9 billion in total notional volume, including about $1.66 billion in April 2026 alone, DeFi Rate reported. The platform grew roughly 15x from September 2025, when it traded $109 million, to April's $1.66 billion, according to the same dashboards. April marked a clear breakout at nearly three times March's volume and more than all prior months combined, DeFi Rate noted.\n\nThat breakout put Limitless at about 5.6% of tracked prediction-market notional volume in April, behind Kalshi at 49.7% and Polymarket's international exchange at 30.2%, but ahead of predict.fun, Polymarket's US platform, Opinion, and Crypto.com, according to DeFi Rate citing Dune dashboards. The company promotes itself as the largest prediction market on Base, Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network, the report noted, and its X bio cites more than $3.5 billion traded.\n\nCEO and co-founder CJ Hetherington told Bernstein analysts that no single prediction-market platform will likely capture more than 50% market share, Bitget reported in June 2026, arguing the sector will mirror perpetual futures trading, where multiple venues coexist. Bernstein forecasts total prediction-platform volume hitting $240 billion in 2026, a 370% year-over-year jump, with a path toward $1 trillion by 2030, Bitget reported. Hetherington sized the institutional risk-transfer opportunity at roughly ten times the estimated $6 billion to $10 billion annual US sports-betting market, according to the same report.\n\nFinance, not sports, is the fastest-growing use case, Hetherington wrote in a LinkedIn post cited by DeFi Rate, pointing to Limitless's 15-minute crypto markets and one-hour commodities markets. The platform's markets span crypto, finance, sports, esports, and politics, and Hetherington said traders can act on an asset's direction every 15 minutes, according to the report.\n\nThe company has raised at least $17 million across disclosed rounds: a $3 million pre-seed in September 2024 led by 1confirmation, a $4 million strategic round in July 2025 with Coinbase Ventures participating, and a $10 million seed in October 2025 led by 1confirmation, DeFi Rate reported. The open question, DeFi Rate noted, is what the blockchain-based exchange looks like inside the US regulatory framework: the public rulebook outlines binary and scalar event contracts, full cash collateralization, and surveillance for spoofing and wash trading, but much of the application remains confidential.", "tags": [ "Limitless", "onchain", "volume", "DeFi" ], "status": "reported", "featured": false }, { "slug": "fanatics-markets-launch-24-states", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/fanatics-markets-launch-24-states.html", "title": "Fanatics folds prediction markets into a single app as it moves to own its exchange rails", "kicker": "VENUES", "category": "Venues", "date": "2026-09-29", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Fanatics folded prediction markets into a single sportsbook, casino and markets app on September 2, while moving to acquire its own CFTC-registered exchange and clearinghouse.", "body": "Fanatics Betting and Gaming combined its sportsbook, casino and prediction-market products into a single app on September 2, 2026, launching Fanatics Sports & Casino as one product with one account and one rewards loop. The company said existing account information, FanCash balances and loyalty status carried over intact, according to the company's official launch notice, as reported by Eyewitness News TV.\n\nPrediction markets are the newest leg of the bundle. Fanatics Markets launched in December 2025 through a partnership with Crypto.com, Dimers reported in its September review, noting that Crypto.com Derivatives is a CFTC-registered exchange and clearinghouse. SportsGambler, which reviewed the product in September, found the operator is Paragon Global Markets, registered with the CFTC and the National Futures Association, and that the event contracts are supplied by Crypto.com Derivatives North America (CDNA), which is also CFTC-regulated.\n\nThe rollout strategy targets the gaps in Fanatics' sportsbook map. The company said prediction markets were available in 22 states and four territories as of the September 2 consolidation, per Eyewitness News TV, while independent reviews put the count slightly higher: Dimers listed 23 states including California, Texas, Florida and Georgia, and SportsGambler listed 24 states. The accounts agree that the footprint covers states where Fanatics does not offer its sportsbook, and that users must be at least 21, according to SportsGambler's review of the signup process.\n\nFanatics is also moving to own more of the infrastructure. In July 2026, the company announced a deal to acquire its own CFTC-registered exchange, Water Street Labs, and clearinghouse, CX Clearinghouse, from BGC Group, aiming to bring that infrastructure in-house, Dimers reported, noting the deal had not closed as of its September review. Eyewitness News TV dated the announcement to July 27, 2026. Until it closes, event contracts are cleared by CDNA, per Dimers.\n\nThe unified app ties every product to the Fanatics ONE loyalty loop. Fanatics said users can earn rewards from every bet, trade and casino play, with rewards tied to Fanatics ONE status and connected to merchandise and collectibles, per Eyewitness News TV. SportsGambler found that new Fanatics Markets accounts automatically join Fanatics ONE, with up to 10% FanCash back on trades, according to SportsGambler's September 2026 review.\n\nThe prediction-market piece remains the most unsettled part of the model, Eyewitness News TV wrote in its September analysis, noting the CFTC proposed regulations in June 2026 aimed at event contracts that replicate sports betting, while state regulators continue to press gambling-law challenges. The analysis warned against judging the app on launch language alone: the supported conclusion is that Fanatics has placed more products and loyalty hooks behind a single account, while pricing competitiveness, market depth and regulatory outcomes remain unproven.", "tags": [ "Fanatics Markets", "Crypto.com", "sports contracts" ], "status": "reported", "featured": true }, { "slug": "kalshi-state-challenge-sports-contracts", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/kalshi-state-challenge-sports-contracts.html", "title": "Sixth Circuit rules against Kalshi as Missouri targets six venues over sports contracts", "kicker": "REGULATION", "category": "Regulation", "date": "2026-09-28", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "The Sixth Circuit ruled Ohio and Tennessee can regulate Kalshi's sports contracts, and Missouri issued cease-and-desist notices to six prediction market venues.", "body": "On September 25, 2026, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that Ohio and Tennessee may apply their gambling laws to Kalshi's sports event contracts, a significant setback for the venue's federal-preemption defense, according to reporting by Reuters correspondent Jonathan Stempel.\n\nThe three-judge panel held that Kalshi had not shown its sports contracts qualify as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act, and therefore do not fall within the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction. In the alternative, the panel held that the Commodity Exchange Act neither expressly nor impliedly preempts Ohio's or Tennessee's gambling laws, even if the contracts were swaps, per the Reuters report. The court affirmed the Southern District of Ohio's denial of a preliminary injunction and vacated a Tennessee federal judge's injunction that had protected Kalshi, remanding for further proceedings.\n\nCircuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, writing for the panel, said swaps generally refer to financial measures, indices and instruments used to hedge risks rather than gaming-related contracts, per Reuters. 'We hold that Kalshi has not shown that its sports-event contracts satisfy the statutory definition of a swap so as to fall within the scope of the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction,' Gibbons wrote, as quoted in Deadspin's coverage of the opinion. She added that 'it is, therefore, difficult to see how determining the probability that a certain number of corner kicks will be taken in a given soccer game, or that a 30-leg parlay will hit, would serve (to) advance those goals' of the Commodity Exchange Act, per Reuters.\n\nKalshi said it does not expect the decision to survive further legal review. 'The ruling shows exactly why a state-by-state patchwork doesn't work,' Kalshi spokesperson Dani Lever said, per Reuters. 'Markets can't operate when the rules change at every state line, which is why Congress created a single federal regulator with nationwide rules.' Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti called the decision a 'great win' for his state, saying, 'Sports wagering is heavily regulated because it can do a lot of harm, and I'm glad we thwarted Kalshi's efforts to remove every safeguard and put Tennessee sports bettors at risk,' per Reuters.\n\nThe ruling deepens a split among the federal appeals courts over who regulates prediction markets, per Reuters. The Ninth Circuit in San Francisco said last month that Kalshi's event contracts are subject to Nevada's gambling laws, while the Third Circuit in Philadelphia said in April that the contracts are not subject to New Jersey's gambling laws. New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Third Circuit decision, raising the prospect that the nation's highest court settles the matter.\n\nSeparately, Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued formal cease-and-desist notices on September 16 and 17 to six of the largest prediction market platforms, Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, Underdog, Novig and Crypto.com, arguing that sports event contracts traded on the platforms fall squarely within Missouri's legal definition of sports betting, per Sportsbook Review. 'Missourians voted for a safe, well-regulated sports wagering market that supports public education and addresses problem gambling. Companies cannot repackage sports bets as event contracts to avoid Missouri law,' Hanaway said. The six operators have 30 days from the date of the notices to stop accepting sports event contracts from Missouri residents, and failure to comply could lead to formal litigation, per the report.\n\nMissouri joins a growing patchwork of state actions. Sportsbook Review reported that Michigan regulators have barred Kalshi from offering sports-related event contracts to residents after a series of court orders, with a preliminary injunction granted in September keeping the ban in place during litigation. Prediction News reported that Missouri joins Connecticut's live lawsuit, Nevada's enforced geofence and New Jersey's Supreme Court bid in the state-by-state contest over Kalshi's federal preemption shield. With the Ohio and Tennessee cases remanded, the Missouri compliance clock running and Supreme Court petitions pending, Kalshi's legal docket is now as central to its business as its trading volume.", "tags": [ "Kalshi", "CFTC", "sports contracts", "state regulation" ], "status": "developing", "featured": true }, { "slug": "public-ai-agent-trading-kalshi", "url": "https://theagentbets.com/articles/public-ai-agent-trading-kalshi.html", "title": "Public launches AI-agent prediction-market trading with Kalshi", "kicker": "INDUSTRY", "category": "Industry", "date": "2026-09-25", "author": "The Agent Bets newsroom", "excerpt": "Public's September 24 launch, via a partnership with Kalshi, lets members trade event contracts directly or have AI agents trade on their behalf and use market probabilities as portfolio signals.", "body": "Brokerage firm Public launched AI Agents for Prediction Markets on September 24, 2026, through a partnership with Kalshi, letting members trade Kalshi event contracts directly or have the platform's AI agents trade on their behalf, according to announcements from both companies.\n\nThrough the partnership, Public members can access Kalshi event contracts through the same infrastructure they already use for Public's other financial products, Kalshi said in its Sept. 24 newsroom announcement. Members can trade events directly or let built-in AI agents act on their behalf, and the agents can use prediction-market data as a signal for stock or bond trades elsewhere in a portfolio, according to Kalshi.\n\nPublic, which describes itself as the world's first agentic brokerage, is positioning the launch around automation. \"Public is built for investors who take an active hand in constructing their portfolios, and our AI agents let them automate those strategies,\" co-CEO and co-founder Leif Abraham said. \"Prediction markets give those agents a new input: real-world events.\" In a Fortune interview, Abraham added: \"AI agents can do work for you, and in investing, that means they can monitor markets when you're not looking at a screen. They can execute strategies that you might have not been physically even able to execute yourself,\" according to a syndication of the interview.\n\nThe product keeps the member in the loop at launch. Users set a strategy and instruct the platform's AI, which converts it into fixed rules that can range from sending an alert when probabilities change to automatically executing a trade, and investors must approve the rules before the agent can act, the Fortune interview reported. Public's launch examples included buying a healthcare stock if FDA approval odds move above 75%, or buying put options if the probability of an earnings miss rises above 60%, with an example position cap of $2,500, according to Bonus.com, citing Public's September 24, 2026 launch materials.\n\nCoverage spans the categories that move financial markets. Tradeable events at launch included Fed rate decisions, CPI and inflation releases, GDP, unemployment, earnings results, delivery targets, revenue milestones, regulatory approvals, legislative actions, elections, and price levels for crypto, oil and precious metals, Public said, via Bonus.com. The offering includes an event contracts hub and daily AI market briefings, markets are available 24/7 including weekends and holidays, and developers can reach them through an open API and Python SDK with read and write functionality, according to Bonus.com.\n\nThe regulatory wrapper is the differentiator Public is emphasizing. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated financial exchange, according to both companies' announcements. Event contracts on Public are offered by Open to the Public Investing, Inc. and Apex Clearing Corporation, both registered futures commission merchants, Public said, via Bonus.com. Public's disclosures also state that event contract trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone, and that event contract accounts are not protected by SIPC, according to Bonus.com.\n\nEligibility is limited at launch. Public said the product is available to eligible members who are at least 18, hold a valid Social Security number, have a legal permanent U.S. residential address, and are U.S. citizens, permanent residents or valid visa holders, according to Bonus.com. Kalshi said prediction markets are now available to all Public members. \"Bringing this data into Public's AI agents shows how prediction markets are increasingly being used to assess risk, inform investment views and support trading strategies,\" said Max Crowley, Kalshi's vice president of business development.", "tags": [ "Public", "Kalshi", "AI agents", "brokerages" ], "status": "confirmed", "featured": true } ]