Football pushed prediction markets past $10.5B in weekend volume

Football helped lift prediction-market notional volume to approximately $10.52 billion across nine exchanges over the Oct. 10–11 weekend, according to DeFi Rate data reported by sportsbookreview.com. Sunday contributed $5.68 billion, while Kalshi accounted for approximately $7.88 billion across the weekend and Polymarket US recorded $1.22 billion.

A separate TickerTracker calculation, reported by The Straight and cited by sportsbookreview.com, placed the weekend total at $10.4 billion. The difference reflects tracking methodologies. Neither measure represents customer deposits, actual spending or exchange revenue.

Football drives activity, but combos dominate

For the Oct. 5–11 week, Kalshi’s standalone football volume reached $1.5 billion, rising 12% from the previous week, according to The PM Pulse’s Oct. 13 report, produced with Aldrin Research and cited by sportsbookreview.com. Standalone sports volume totaled $3.8 billion, up 5%. Aldrin’s figures also showed successive daily records for Kalshi: $3.91 billion on Saturday and $3.96 billion on Sunday.

Across the industry, weekly volume reached $25.6 billion, an increase of 4.6% and a record for The PM Pulse’s tracking series. Polymarket US registered $2.8 billion for the week, followed by DraftKings Predictions at $734 million and Novig at $672 million, sportsbookreview.com reported.

Combo contracts, which combine multiple outcomes in a structure similar to sportsbook parlays, generated $12.4 billion and represented 65.3% of Kalshi’s weekly volume. They also supplied 71.2% of the industry’s week-over-week volume increase, according to The PM Pulse figures cited by sportsbookreview.com. Without combos, Kalshi’s weekly market share was 63.8%, compared with 65.1% a week earlier.

Understanding the volume measures

The accounting convention matters: prediction-market volume commonly uses a contract’s $1 settlement value rather than its purchase price. As sportsbookreview.com explains, 100 contracts bought for 10 cents apiece require $10 before fees but register $100 in notional volume. Low-priced combos can therefore produce a particularly large gap between reported activity and customer outlay.

Macquarie projects industry taker volume of $187 billion in 2026, versus approximately $22 billion in 2025, according to sportsbookreview.com. That is a different measure from the weekend’s notional total. Analyst Chad Beynon expects sports to support growth through year-end, with November’s midterm elections potentially adding political trading; Macquarie also identified DraftKings and FanDuel as possible beneficiaries of expansion into additional jurisdictions.

What it means for prediction markets

• Record volume needs context. The weekend totals measure contract notional value, not the money customers committed or the revenue platforms earned.
• Contract mix shapes growth. Combos supplied 71.2% of the weekly industry increase, making standalone activity an important comparison alongside headline totals.
• Leadership depends on the measure. Kalshi led weekend activity, but its weekly share excluding combos declined from 65.1% to 63.8%.
• Forecasts are not directly comparable. Macquarie’s taker-volume projection and the reported weekend notional figures use different measures.