Last Updated on February 26, 2026 7:41 am by admin
The NFL Super Bowl is usually, well, the Super Bowl of betting events for sportsbooks. More money is wagered on the big game every year than any other tentpole event in major North American sports.
This trend has only increased with the mass legalization of sports gambling in the United States, as well as the mobile optimization and live-odds lean-in from operators. According to vegasbetting.com, all of the highest rated sportsbooks now have two major factors in common: ease of access on mobile devices and a steady commitment to providing real-time odds on a wide catalog of wagering options.
Add it all up, and the Super Bowl is catnip for sportsbook activity, each and every year, without fail.
Or maybe not.
This apparently wasn’t the case for the Super Bowl LX matchup between the New England Patriots and now-reigning champion Seattle Seahawks. The sheer volume of wagers placed dropped by a noticeable degree, and experts believe two words can sum up the reason why: prediction markets.
Prediction Markets Reportedly Sliced into the Volume of Super Bowl Betting at Sportsbooks
To be fair, some of the downtick at sportsbooks during the Super Bowl can be attributed to the Patriots vs. Seahawks matchup. It did not have the aura of the Kansas City Chiefs looking to repeat, as was the case last year. By extension, it also lacked the Taylor Swift element. Her attendance at Super Bowl LIX drove interest in the game and prompted the creation of entire betting markets that appealed to a new subset of fans who otherwise may not have wagered on the game.
Still, even with this context, many experts are concerned the drop-off is more about the wider-spread use of prediction markets. As Peyton Forte and Denitsa Tsekova wrote for Bloomberg, the concern is so strong that sportsbook stocks plummeted in the aftermath of the game:
“The stock of Flutter Entertainment Plc, which runs one of the most popular US gambling apps, FanDuel, is on an eight week skid, the longest in 23 years. Its main competitor, DraftKings, is trading around the lowest levels since 2023, and is down more than 60 percent from its all-time high five years ago…Jordan Bender, senior equity analyst at Citizens, is expecting record breaking trading volumes on prediction markets at the same time that legal wagering on traditional sportsbooks — or handle as it is known — falls 2 percent from last year. ‘A big piece of why we think the Super Bowl handle will be down is that prediction markets are taking a bite out of that,’ Bender said.”
Like Bender alludes to, we still do not have the final data points. And as the story from Forte and Denitsa goes on to note, some sports betting experts believe the handle could still rise year-over-year.
Yet, it wasn’t long ago that an annualized uptick would have been an afterthought. Sportsbooks have enjoyed near-unchecked growth since the Supreme Court of the United States overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act back in 2018. That we are discussing the prospect of a slide at all is a big deal.
We Do Not Yet Know the Full Effect of Prediction Markets on Sports Betting
Even amid all the concern, we continue to see reports that prediction markets have yet to meaningfully cut into betting volume at traditional sportsbooks. That is encouraging on the surface. But it’s missing some context.
Prediction markets—which, for those who remain unfamiliar, accept “trades” on yes-or-no events, such as Super Bowl winners—did not go mainstream until the past couple of years. And even that is a generous interpretation of when they became a go-to source for sports fans.
Companies providing prediction markets were previously hesitant to enter the sports space because betting laws are state-specific. However, once Donald Trump was elected as president in 2024, these operators earnestly started ambling onto the sports scene. Their argument that transactions are “trades” rather than “bets,” not unlike the stock market, was more pervasive to the current federal government. And it’s the federal government that oversees prediction-market regulation. States, on the other hand, are tasked with approving and overseeing their own sports betting markets.
This is all to say: Prediction markets have really only been a sports betting alternative for around a year, if that. It will be a while before we know the extent to which its knifing into traditional sports betting. Remember, the vast majority of the United States had already legalized some form of sports betting by 2024. Just as it takes newer sportsbooks time to cut into the market share of entrenched betting sites, prediction markets will need to become more of a mainstay before materially cutting into a 10-figure industry.
How Worried Should the Sports Betting Industry Actually be About Prediction Markets?
All in all, the sports betting industry does appear to be reaching an inflection point. Even if it’s a while before prediction markets become the standard for sports fans, the fact that they may already be disrupting the returns on the most popular gambling event of the year is a big freaking deal.
So, too, is the looser regulation to which prediction markets adhere. Never mind the fact they don’t need a sports betting license to operate in given states. The legal age for using sports prediction markets is 18. Sports betting laws require customers to be 21 or older. The ability to tap into a younger demographic means that prediction markets not only have a wider net to cast, but they’re developing goodwill among customers who will continue to favor them over traditional sports betting once they’re of-age.
Recent actions from FanDuel and DraftKings also point toward a potential existential crisis. Both companies have launched their own prediction markets. And if the two biggest sports betting companies in the industry are essentially taking a “if you can’t beat them, join them approach,” it at best says something about the staying power and mounting popularity of predictions.
At worst, meanwhile, it could be a harbinger of doom for traditional sports betting companies—a gloomy signal that won’t take effect right away, but one that puts the very industry at risk over the longer term.