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Even before the primetime matchup in Kansas City, it became abundantly clear that the industry would shatter previous marks for weekly activity. The AFC West showdown bolstered the already robust totals. Overall, volume for the week hit a record $15.9 billion, according to Bank of America, up 16% from a week earlier.
The pure-play prediction market-operators, Polymarket and Kalshi, emerged from Week 1 as the clear winners. On one hand, Kalshi’s market share lead narrowed over its competitors, falling to 82% for the week ended 13 September, down from 86% a week earlier.
Still, Kalshi had a nine-fold lead over Polymarket, its next closest rival. Polymarket, meanwhile, led the group with 762,000 app downloads, edging Kalshi, DraftKings and FanDuel in the category. The downloads represented a 13,509% weekly increase and 25% of total category downloads, Polymarket wrote in a statement.
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With all that in mind, it’s not surprising that Macquarie expects sports event contracts will drive approximately 80% of taker volume this year, but Beynon sees other categories growing over the long term.
“We expect non-sports categories such as economics, politics, crypto, and entertainment to gain share over time,” says the analyst.
Prediction market operators are on legal losing streaks, confirming that Beynon is onto something when he says the regulatory environment is the biggest risk facing the industry.
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Dunn pointed out that ICE saw the same demand last year, with the Innovator Challenge alongside Microsoft and keynotes from the likes of AWS and Huawei.
This year, the team is responding with a new initiative, Hall 7. The launch of Hall 7 represents a stronger platform to drive the next phase of iGaming innovation.
Tech Race in Warsaw this September and Hall 7 at ICE in Barcelona this January are set to become sequential chapters of the same conversation. CTOs, CSOs and data leaders can expect to pick up where they left off four months later.
