Sports Outpace Election Bets as Kalshi, Polymarket Hit $53 Billion

Kalshi and Polymarket reached $53 billion in combined July trading volume, but sports contracts powered the surge, underscoring how small election markets remained ahead of the U.S. midterms.

Combined monthly volume more than doubled from $26 billion in May. The totals measure global notional taker volume, including Polymarket US. They count contracts at their $1 payout value rather than the prices traders paid, so the $53 billion figure does not represent cash spent.

Sports contracts drove most of the increase. Political contracts on Polymarket averaged about $2 billion a month this year, while Kalshi’s remained below $300 million a month. Trading in Kalshi markets tied to control of the House and Senate exceeded $30 million by July.

Kalshi launched its Midterms Hub on July 22. The hub displays traders’ implied probabilities for individual races beside polling averages, allowing visitors to compare market prices with survey results.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) previously rejected Kalshi’s congressional-control contracts, but a court vacated that decision in 2024. The CFTC also proposed classifying election contracts as gaming before withdrawing that proposal in February. A framework proposed June 10 would review event contracts without placing elections in the gaming category.

The platforms’ overall volume does not show how much trading it takes to move a particular election market. A $3,500 order could shift prices by at least 5 cents in 97% of the midterm-related markets examined in a liquidity test. That finding concerns the markets tested, rather than every contract available on either platform.

A review of more than 72 million Kalshi trades found that prices broadly tracked eventual outcomes, with some deviation at the highest and lowest price levels. That result addresses how closely prices matched outcomes; it does not measure how resistant each market was to a large order.

Former “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd has raised questions about how polling and prediction markets affect each other and whether election trading serves as hedging or entertainment. He is scheduled to host the NEXTPredict summit in New York on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 22 and 23.