Kalshi, Polymarket take early lead over prediction market competitors for first week of the NFL season

Before Patrick Mahomes laced up his cleats for his 2026-2027 NFL frequent-season debut, US prediction markets had already cleared a historic benchmark for the gap week of the season.

Two operators  – Kalshi and Polymarket – topped the mixed $1 billion designate in NFL buying and selling train over the most considerable six days of Week 1, constant with a form of measures this week. At some stage within the length, Kalshi recorded NFL volume of $983.4 million, constant with DeFi Rate, earning the pole predicament by a large margin. Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs thrashed the Denver Broncos 31-10 on Monday Evening Football, capping a truly considerable week for prediction markets ever.

Even earlier than the primetime matchup in Kansas City, it changed into abundantly particular that the business would break old marks for weekly train. The AFC West showdown bolstered the already sturdy totals. Total, volume for the week hit a file $15.9 billion, constant with Monetary institution of The usa, up 16% from a week earlier.

The prediction market-operators, Polymarket and Kalshi, emerged from Week 1 because the actual winners. On one hand, Kalshi’s market fragment lead narrowed over its competitors, falling to 82% for the week ended 13 September, down from 86% a week earlier.

Silent, Kalshi had a 9-fold lead over Polymarket, its next closest rival. Polymarket, meanwhile, led the community with 762,000 app downloads, edging Kalshi, DraftKings and FanDuel within the category. The downloads represented a 13,509% weekly lengthen and 25% of total category downloads, Polymarket wrote in a press free up.

Uptick at Robinhood

Across the market, operators delivered high double-digit gains in comparison with Labor Day weekend, which featured a paunchy slate of faculty soccer games however no NFL contests. Two operators, DraftKings and Underdog each and each noticed triple-digit growth, delivering weekly increases of 125% and 119%, respectively. Three others, Polymarket, Crypto.com and Novig, noticed gains of at least 30%, led by Polymarket with a weekly lengthen of 46%.

One energetic nugget surrounds weekend figures at Kalshi, where volume on Sunday simplest surpassed prior each day train by $34 million, BofA info shows. Usually, Sunday volume for the quarter dwarfs that of School Football Saturdays attributable to the voracious quiz for NFL offerings. BofA analyst Shaun Kelley attributes the irregularity to the likelihood that Kalshi is “over indexing” on college sports activities.

Kelley also cited enhancements at Robinhood as a that which you’ll judge of ingredient for the regression at Kalshi. Correct earlier than the NFL season, Robinhood took a minority stake in Crypto.com and struck a deal to initiating routing NFL contracts to OG.com, the positioning’s regulated prediction market platform.