When the World Cup opened, marketers at predictions operator Kalshi were confident they could gain sufficient exposure for their product by cobbling together endorsement deals with a handful of retired stars from the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, England, Spain and France, and sponsorship of the Argentine national team, home to icon Lionel Messi.
The lineup — Clint Dempsey, Memo Ochoa, Marcelo, Falcao, Rio Ferdinand, David Villa, Raphaël Varane, Ángel Di María and Messi — was sure to capture the attention of the avid soccer fans most likely to place bets on the 104 World Cup matches that were about to unfold across six weeks.
On the product side, Kalshi offered thousands of event contracts designed to mirror the betting menus of legal U.S. sportsbooks, with odds on not only tournament and match winners, but also on the count of shots and corner kicks in each game and player props that could be configured into a dizzying array of parlays.
In a nod to Fox’s broad audience, Kalshi opted for an earworm-inducing, brand-focused spot featuring actor Timothée Chalamet.
It all went so well that by the time the knockout stage began, Kalshi was doubling down on a tournament that had crossed over into a bona fide cultural event, securing passalong rights to pair its logo with FIFA category sponsor ADI Predictstreet in a highly visible pitch-side rotation.
The result: Kalshi recorded $12.4 billion in World Cup volume, including props but excluding parlays, according to data from prediction market analysis tool TickerTracker; Kalshi said it took in $27 billion in World Cup volume when parlays are included. TickerTracker data showed Kalshi recorded $1.75 billion from March Madness games earlier this year.
Exchanges from competitors Robinhood and Polymarket U.S. took $3.38 billion and $3.29 billion in straight wagers, respectively, according to data from TicketTracker.
“The World Cup is the World Cup. It’s one of a kind,” said Adam Barrick, Kalshi head of sports partnerships. “You can’t even call it a sporting event. It’s a cultural event. It really has led to this pinnacle moment for our business that we hope keeps going up.
“We hold ourselves from a performance perspective to a very, very high bar. But what we saw with World Cup exceeded those in a significant way.”
Business also was brisk for legal sportsbooks, based on June data released by state regulators. Sportsbooks are on pace to reverse six consecutive months of year-on-year decline, with June handle tracking 26% higher than last June in the 21 states that had reported results for that month.
With 79 of the tournament’s 104 games played, sportsbooks in those states had taken about $1.5 billion more in bets than they did for the month last year, a rate that would yield a $2.5 billion increase if it holds up across all 33 states that report handle. Some of that gain could be connected to the New York Knicks’ five NBA Finals games, but most likely came from the World Cup.
If sportsbook bettor patterns mirrored those of Kalshi bettors, who placed about half of their wagers in July, handle gains for the two months are likely to approach $5 billion, which would exceed the top end of the $2.3 billion to $4.3 billion range that gambling industry research firm Eilers & Krejcik projected before the tournament. That total wouldn’t include the not publicly reported legal take in Florida, which the firm included in its estimates.
Because they are calculated differently, sportsbook handle and prediction exchange volume are difficult to accurately compare.
Barrick pointed to Kalshi’s ability to attract those interested in betting on pop culture, current events and the weather as a differentiator that contributed to its success. About one-third of the 3 million users it added during the World Cup have since placed bets outside of sports, he said.
“When we started putting together our strategy around World Cup in Q3-Q4, yes, it’s a sporting event,” Barrick said, “but we very much saw it as a cultural, mainstream event, which lends itself very nicely to our product. Because our product isn’t just sports.”
