Category: News

The prediction market category has grown in too many directions for a single cluster of reviews to cover it. This week we are publishing nine new platform reviews and reorganizing our main rankings page into four clear categories.

What we added this week

CFTC-regulated US event contracts: beyond Kalshi, we now cover Crypto.com Event Contracts, Robinhood Event Contracts, and Interactive Brokers ForecastEx. Together with Kalshi, these are the four CFTC-regulated venues a US retail user can legally access nationwide.

Decentralized PM protocols: alongside Polymarket and Zeitgeist, we added Overtime Markets, Thales Market, and the original Augur. Augur is effectively dormant in 2026 but historically foundational; we include it for completeness.

Sports-focused exchanges: earlier this week we added Novig, ProphetX, Sporttrade, and Betfair Exchange. Today we are adding Matchbook (UK exchange, Betfair alternative), SX Bet (decentralized sports on SX Network), and Pinnacle (the sharp-book closing-line reference).

How the rankings are organized now

The main best prediction markets 2026 hub is now organized into four categories:

• CFTC-regulated event contracts (US): Kalshi, Crypto.com, Robinhood, IBKR ForecastEx
• Decentralized / crypto-native PMs: Polymarket, Zeitgeist, Overtime, Thales, Augur
• Sports-focused exchanges: Betfair, Novig, ProphetX, Matchbook, Sporttrade, SX Bet, Pinnacle
• Research / academic PMs: PredictIt, Manifold, Metaculus, Smarkets

Editorial stance

Our position on every platform review is the same: we do not make picks, we report the category honestly, and we disclose referral relationships on every page. Platforms we cannot in good conscience recommend for active use – like Augur, which is effectively dormant – are reviewed with an explicit warning banner. Platforms we hold as context but which are not accessible to US users – like Pinnacle, Betfair Exchange, and SX Bet – are flagged clearly.

If you see a gap in our coverage, let us know. The goal remains to be the definitive independent reference for this category.

Until now, predictwire.io focused on the general-purpose prediction markets: Kalshi, Polymarket, PredictIt, Manifold, Metaculus, Smarkets, Zeitgeist. Those platforms remain the best starting point for readers interested in political markets, crypto, and policy forecasts. But for readers who came here specifically looking for sports-event-contract pricing, we were leaving out the exchanges that handle most of that volume.

That changes today.

What is now covered

• Novig (4.5/5): Licensed US peer-to-peer sports exchange. Founded by Jacob Fortinsky and Kelechi Ukah in 2021, launched to retail in 2023. Flat commission on winnings, no traditional vig, sharp-friendly operation. Operates under state sports betting licenses in a growing list of jurisdictions.
• ProphetX (4.4/5): The longest-running US peer-to-peer sports exchange. Founded in 2021. Broad coverage of major leagues and international soccer, commission-only pricing, no winner limiting. A favorite of sharp US bettors.
• Sporttrade (4.2/5): Stock-exchange-style US sports app. Every outcome priced $0 to $100, Jump Trading liquidity, exceptional in-play UX. Live in Colorado, New Jersey, and Iowa as of 2026. The easiest entry point for users new to exchange-style betting.
• Betfair Exchange (4.7/5): The original sports betting exchange. UK-based, owned by Flutter, 20+ years of operating history. Global scale and the industry reference point for peer-to-peer sports markets. Not available to US residents.

Why these four, and why now

Prediction-market-style pricing for sports has been moving quickly. Kalshi launched federally regulated sports event contracts and posted record volume through early 2026. State-licensed exchanges – Novig, ProphetX, and Sporttrade – kept quietly growing state footprints and matched-volume alongside that. A meaningful share of the sharp US sports-betting money is now flowing through exchanges rather than traditional sportsbooks, because exchange pricing is better and exchange operators do not limit winning accounts.

Readers coming to PredictWire from the “prediction market” side of the Venn diagram deserve a full view of that landscape, including the exchange-style platforms that are not, strictly speaking, federally regulated prediction markets but that mechanically do the same thing. Betfair Exchange is the bookend on the international side and the platform every US exchange operator is reverse-engineering.

How the new pages slot into our existing guides

Our best prediction markets for sports guide has been updated with a full section on the four sports-focused exchanges, plus a comparison of how their legal structure differs from Kalshi’s CFTC-regulated sports contracts. The best prediction markets 2026 hub now lists all four, and the homepage has a dedicated sports-exchange card grid.

Our editorial stance is consistent with everything else on the site: we do not make picks, we do not tell readers which market to trade, and we disclose affiliate relationships on every page. If you sign up for one of these platforms through a PredictWire link we may earn a referral fee, at no cost to you, which funds the independence to keep our rankings honest.

Yesterday in prediction markets

• Kalshi: April volume crossed $1.95B by Sunday night, putting the CFTC-regulated exchange within striking distance of its first $2B month. NBA playoff contracts and Fed rate markets led the surge, with the 2026 Senate control contract adding meaningful late-week volume.
• Polymarket: “Will the Fed cut rates in June?” topped $88M in weekend trading volume, the biggest non-political market of the year so far. The “Bitcoin above $120K on June 30” contract came in second at roughly $54M.
• PredictIt: Opened a fresh slate of 2026 gubernatorial contracts for Texas, Florida, and Georgia. It is the first meaningful listing expansion since the platform’s February reorganization and a quiet signal that academic usage is holding.
• Smarkets: Q1 trading update from the UK exchange noted that exchange-style event contracts now account for 18% of UK volume, up from 11% a year ago, as operators continue to shift weight into non-sports categories.
• Zeitgeist: Governance passed a proposal to allocate 4M ZTG to a market-maker incentive pool, with the incentive program scheduled to go live this week.

One thing worth watching

The CFTC staff letter expected Wednesday is the single most important document this industry has been waiting on since Kalshi’s 2024 appellate win. It will not, on its own, resolve the legal question of whether federally regulated sports event contracts are permissible at full scale. What it will do is frame the terms of that fight for the next twelve months, and every operator in the category has been positioning their public messaging around what they think the letter will say.

The stakes are concrete. Kalshi has roughly $400M in open interest across sports contract categories as of Sunday night. Polymarket has a larger offshore sports book it has signaled would come onshore if and when US rules allow. The state attorneys general who filed amicus briefs against Kalshi’s NCAA contracts in January are watching the same letter, and at least two have telegraphed they would escalate to injunction motions if CFTC staff signals tolerance.

What to look for in the text itself: Does staff address state preemption directly, or dodge it? Does it carve between outcome-of-game and prop-style contracts, or treat sports as a single regulated category? And does it reference the Brookings Institution working paper on market integrity circulated to commissioners in March? A footnote citation there would tell you more about staff’s direction than most of the body text.

Sources and further reading: Platform blogs and public communications from Kalshi, Polymarket, PredictIt, Smarkets, and Zeitgeist. CFTC Commissioner speeches, March 2026. Brookings Institution working paper on event contract market integrity. IG Group investor relations calendar. For full platform rankings and reviews, visit the best prediction markets guide or the individual Kalshi, Polymarket, and PredictIt reviews.