Polymarket at $375M/year
Jan-Erik Asplund
TL;DR: After becoming the largest prediction market globally while operating outside the US, Polymarket acquired a CFTC-licensed exchange and launched in America in May 2026, with its trading mix shifting from politics to sports as it takes Kalshi on directly. Sacra estimates Polymarket hit $375M in annualized revenue in May 2026, now in talks to raise at a $15B valuation for a 40x multiple. For more, check out our full report and dataset on Polymarket.
We first covered Polymarket (Nov 2025) as the crypto-native counterpart to Kalshi (May 2025) in prediction markets, as well as looking at the broader sports betting & crypto Gen Z degen economy.
We also interviewed Underdog Fantasy co-founder Trevor John to better understand the sports betting-ification of both fantasy sports & prediction markets.
Key points via Sacra AI:
- After growing into the largest prediction market globally by volume while operating exclusively outside the U.S., Polymarket acquired the CFTC-licensed exchange QCEX for $112M (July 2025) and launched in America in May 2026 on iOS with sports contracts as the first category available, including exclusive partnerships with MLB and MLS.
- Originally fee-free, Polymarket began charging fees on traders for the first time in January 2026 (1.8% on crypto, 0.75% on sports), hitting a Sacra-estimated $375M in annualized revenue in May 2026 & in talks to raise at a $15B valuation for a roughly 40x multiple vs. Kalshi at $2B annualized revenue, up from $735M in 2025 (+2,840% YoY), in talks to raise at a $40B valuation for a 20x multiple.
- Polymarket's monetization is still early, with its blended effective rate (~0.3% of volume) running roughly at one-quarter of Kalshi's (~1.2%) on $8.9B in May 2026 trading volume vs. Kalshi's $16.8B (U.S. only), with Polymarket's U.S. arm growing from $1.3B in April to $1.8B in May, making up ~20% of the platform's global volume.
- While Polymarket's first big market was politics, peaking at ~90% of volume around the 2024 Trump election, sports is now its largest category at ~40% of volume, spiking around events like the NBA Finals ($413M) and the World Cup ($2.5B), followed by politics at 32% and crypto at 20%, with Kalshi following a similar arc from majority election-driven politics trades to 80% sports as political markets have gone quiet and Kalshi has focused on the sports-betting-centric U.S. market.
- Polymarket is getting distribution through app integrations with PrizePicks, Betr, and DAZN, but prediction markets are quickly becoming a feature every major consumer platform wants to own, not just distribute, with Kalshi distribution partner Robinhood launching its own CFTC-licensed exchange, DraftKings acquiring one in Railbird, and even Meta now reportedly building a standalone app called Arena to leverage its 3.5B daily active users.
For more, check out this other research from our platform:
- Polymarket (dataset)
- Kalshi (dataset)
- Polymarket vs Kalshi
- Trevor John, co-founder of Underdog Fantasy, on the business model of fantasy sports
- Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, on building the Nasdaq of crypto
- Whatnot at $359M/yr
- David Ripley, COO of Kraken, on the future of cryptocurrency exchanges
- Duncan Cock Foster, co-founder of Nifty Gateway, on NFTs as luxury goods
- Stan vs Whop
- Underdog Fantasy
- eToro vs Robinhood
