- A new industry analysis projects prediction markets will trade $36.8 billion on NFL outcomes this season, more than double last year and more than the $32.3 billion projected for every legal U.S. sportsbook combined.
- The comparison carries a caveat: prediction-market “trading volume” counts every buy and sell, so it is not the same as sportsbook “handle,” the money actually wagered.
- Analysts say legal sportsbook growth has flattened and point to the absence of legal betting in Texas, California and Georgia as a main reason.
- Texas is both cause and effect, its ban caps the national sportsbook market and funnels Texans into prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, which the state cannot tax or regulate.
- The NFL enters the season without an official sportsbook partner for the first time since 2021, as the league weighs deals with sportsbooks and prediction markets alike.
AUSTIN – The most important number of the 2026 NFL season may not be a point spread. It is $36.8 billion, the amount a new industry analysis projects will change hands on prediction markets tied to pro football this year, a figure that would, for the first time, top what every legal sportsbook in America takes in on the sport.
A Projected $36.8 Billion, and a Big Caveat
The forecast comes from a RotoWire analysis by prediction-markets reporter Dustin Gouker, which projects that legal U.S. sportsbooks will handle a record $32.3 billion on the NFL this season, only a marginal increase, while prediction markets trade $36.8 billion on NFL outcomes, more than double the $16.75 billion they handled a year ago.
That comparison needs a caveat, and an important one. Sportsbook “handle” measures the money actually wagered. Prediction-market “trading volume” counts every transaction, and because a contract can be bought and sold many times before a game ends, the same dollar can be counted more than once. Prediction markets, in other words, are not necessarily taking in more real money than sportsbooks; they are generating more trading. Even so, the crossover is a milestone that would have sounded far-fetched two seasons ago, when these platforms barely registered in sports.
Why Prediction Markets Are Surging
The momentum is real no matter how the dollars are counted. During last season’s NFL playoffs, Kalshi set volume records, taking in more than $455 million on a single Saturday and $466 million the next day, with sports making up more than 90 percent of its activity. The platform went on to trade $27.5 billion during this summer’s 104-match World Cup. Their reach keeps widening, too: Kalshi now feeds prediction contracts to Robinhood’s tens of millions of users, and Polymarket, FanDuel and Novig are all courting football traders for the coming season.
Part of the appeal is structural. Because prediction markets are regulated as federal financial exchanges rather than sportsbooks, they operate nationwide, set their minimum age at 18, and, unlike a sportsbook, do not cut off or limit winning customers, since the money moves between traders rather than against the house.
Texas Is Both Cause and Effect
Texas runs straight through the story, in two directions at once. The same analysis flags the absence of legal betting in Texas, California and Georgia as the main reason legal sportsbook growth has stalled; the industry has largely run out of populous new states to add, and Texas is the biggest prize still off the board. With no legal Texas sportsbook, the tens of millions of football fans here contribute nothing to that sportsbook handle.
Instead, they drive the other number. Texans who want to bet on the Texans or the Cowboys are routed into prediction markets in Texas such as Kalshi and Polymarket, along with pick’em apps, precisely because the state offers no licensed alternative. Every one of those trades helps push the prediction-market total past the sportsbook total, and none of it is taxed, licensed or monitored by Texas. The state’s prohibition does not stop the betting; it just decides which column it lands in.
The NFL Is Caught in the Middle
The league itself is watching the shift with unusual ambivalence. As the season opens, the NFL has no official sportsbook partner for the first time since 2021, the result of a standoff over how much sportsbooks must pay for the official data feed that settles bets. That has handed the prediction markets an opening, and analysts expect the league to play the two industries against each other: if the sportsbooks will not pay what the NFL wants, the fast-growing prediction platforms might. A league that once campaigned against legal gambling now has two industries bidding for its blessing.
What It Means Heading Into the Season
For bettors, the season arrives with new friction. A change in federal tax law now caps the deduction for gambling losses at 90 percent, down from 100 percent, meaning some high-volume bettors could owe taxes on money they never cleared, and at least one veteran bookmaker has predicted it will push big players toward offshore books. For regulators, the prediction-market boom has spawned lawsuits and legislative fights across the country, including in Texas, where Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has ordered a study of the “loophole.”
None of it changes the reality on the ground here. Under the state’s gambling laws, there is no legal sportsbook in Texas and no path to one before the Legislature reconvenes in 2027. So as the NFL kicks off, Texans will wager billions on football through the many gambling sites in Texas the state never authorized, and the prediction markets, powered in part by that shut-out demand, will quietly rewrite what the biggest betting season in the country looks like.