Prediction Markets Conference Updates & More

THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR

Conference updates first, then the signals moving the market. Let's get into it.

ROLR joins as a Diamond Sponsor. Our top tier, with main-stage visibility and a central presence across the event, and this week's Prediction Signals sponsor.

SafeBets.world returns as a Diamond Sponsor. Back again at the top tier, and fresh off a feature in Forbes. Returning partners are the best endorsement we could ask for.

John Conlon of Greenlight Commodities joins the roster. Greenlight executed the first institutional trade on Kalshi, a genuine first of its kind. It turns event contracts from a retail story into a product funds and market makers can use at size. John will speak to that shift and where institutional participation goes next.

Jonathan Russell of StraightForecast joins the stage. Three decades at the operational center of regulated betting and futures markets: a former Global Head of Trading at Betway and three-term Chair of the International Betting Integrity Association, working with the IOC, UEFA, and tennis integrity. As the gambling-versus-financial-product debate heats up, he has lived the regulatory questions the US is now asking.

Congratulations to our community. River Markets just closed an $8.5 million raise; co-founder Oscar Levy spoke at our April edition. And congratulations to EDGE Markets on its $29.2 million Series A announced in June. The right rooms create real outcomes.

More speakers coming. We are finalizing the next batch and will announce soon.

Polymarket is in talks to raise roughly $1 billion at a valuation north of $20 billion. To put that in context: the company raised at a $9 billion valuation last October and around $15 billion in April, which means it is on track to more than double its worth in under a year. Few private companies in any sector are repricing that fast, and fewer still in a category most of Wall Street dismissed as a novelty eighteen months ago.

The fundamentals are doing the talking. Annualized revenue has crossed $1 billion since the regulated US platform launched in May. The US exchange is clearing more than $100 million in daily notional volume, and the international book is running above $150 million a day. That combination, real revenue plus regulated US access plus a global funnel, is what turns a speculative story into an investable one.

The tell is who keeps writing checks. Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, has already put more than $1.6 billion into Polymarket and has said it is looking at this round too. When the operator of the NYSE doubles and triples down on a prediction market, the signal is unambiguous: this is no longer a curiosity to dabble in, but infrastructure for how information gets priced.

Sources: Bloomberg, CNBC, Yahoo Finance

On August 19, Cantor Fitzgerald became one of the first full-service investment banks to offer institutional clients block trading in prediction markets, opening Kalshi's CFTC-regulated event contracts to roughly 3,000 institutional accounts. Cantor acts as the broker on the block trades while Susquehanna, one of the most sophisticated market-making firms in the world, provides institutional-scale pricing and liquidity. Kalshi is the first venue available through the service, and Cantor has signaled that additional exchanges will follow.

This is the clearest sign yet that prediction markets are crossing from a retail app into a genuine desk product. What has been missing is the ability for a fund to put on a position at size without moving the market against itself, and without the compliance friction that keeps allocators on the sidelines. A regulated block-trading channel removes exactly that friction. As Pascal Bandelier, Cantor's co-CEO and global head of equities, framed it, the constraint was never demand: "The liquidity is here."

The knock-on effects are the part worth watching. Once one bulge-bracket desk offers access, its peers face pressure to match it, and the market makers pricing the flow, Susquehanna today and likely Jump and others tomorrow, start competing to be the liquidity behind it. That is how an asset class matures. It is also the exact conversation we are convening on stage in November.

Sources: Cantor Fitzgerald, Bloomberg, CNBC, CoinDesk

Kalshi and Polymarket combined for $50.59 billion in July, with Kalshi alone accounting for $37.7 billion, roughly 74.5 percent of the total. The 2026 FIFA World Cup carried much of that summer surge, and the natural assumption was that volumes would cool once the tournament ended. They have not. The baton has passed cleanly from soccer to American football, and the early numbers suggest the fall could dwarf the summer.

NFL volume across the major venues hit $167.8 million in the week ending August 16, up 324 percent from the week before, and this is still preseason. The Hall of Fame game alone traded $19.42 million on Kalshi. Football is the ideal product for these markets: a dense weekly schedule, deep public interest, and a near-infinite menu of contracts. Each is a fresh liquidity event, and there are seventeen weeks of them before the playoffs even begin.

The strategic read is that sustained, recurring volume, not one-off spikes, is what convinces market makers and institutions to commit real capital. A single blockbuster event proves demand exists; a full football season proves the demand is durable. If preseason is already printing these figures, the regular season and playoffs are set up to be the largest sustained volume event prediction markets have ever recorded.

Sources: DeFi Rate, Action Network

Growth and scrutiny arrive together, and August delivered both at once. CFTC staff issued an advisory reminding designated contract markets to steer clear of "risk-free" language and bookmaker-style odds, a shot across the bow at marketing that blurs the line between trading and betting. Days later, a coalition of 44 state attorneys general told the CFTC flatly that it has no authority over sports-related event contracts, arguing jurisdiction belongs to state gambling regulators.

The pressure is not only federal. A Washington judge ordered Kalshi to stop offering most wagers in the state, and New York City opened a probe into Kalshi and Polymarket over potential social harms. The exchanges are now fighting a multi-front battle: a federal agency defining the rules, dozens of states contesting its reach, and courts issuing venue-specific injunctions that carve the map into a patchwork.

Underneath all of it sits a single unresolved question: are these products a financial instrument or a form of gambling? The answer determines who regulates them, how they are taxed, what they can advertise, and which states they can serve. The UK settled a version of this debate decades ago with spread betting; the US is relitigating it with higher stakes and far more capital in the room. That is exactly why we are bringing regulators, integrity experts, and operators to the same stage in November.

Sources: CNBC, Covers, Sportico

Liquidity is everything in prediction markets, and the plumbing is finally catching up to the trading. ProphetX and EDGE Markets announced a partnership to enable 24/7 real-time deposits through EDGE's Boost banking product, giving eligible users fee-free daily deposit limits of up to $1 million, no banking-hour restrictions, and a dedicated, FDIC-insured account that separates trading capital from everyday finances. Nights, weekends, and live market events are exactly when traders need to move money and exactly when the traditional banking system makes them wait.

EDGE is quickly becoming the connective tissue of the category. It already runs similar rails for Kalshi and Polymarket and says it has processed more than $2 billion in transactions since launching EDGE Boost in 2025. Fresh off a $29.2 million Series A, the company is rolling out EDGE Pro, high-throughput deposit accounts for market makers, and EDGE Connect, which it bills as the first purpose-built payment rail engineered for regulated gaming and prediction markets. CEO Seni Thomas frames the ambition plainly: become the default financial platform for the space.

The timing is deliberate. Regular-season football is the real stress test for a sports-native exchange like ProphetX, and the platforms that let traders and market makers fund accounts instantly will capture the volume when it spikes. There is a caveat worth naming: sports event contracts still face a wall of legal challenges and remain restricted in Michigan, Nevada, and Washington. But the direction of travel is clear. As the market matures, the winners will not only have the best contracts, they will have the best rails underneath them.

Source: Yahoo Finance / Covers

Written by Sense Digital Media

Every prediction market operator wants more users. But the real objective is not more registrations or even more First-Time Depositors. It is acquiring traders who keep funding their accounts, participate across multiple markets, and generate long-term revenue. That is why Lifetime Value has become the metric that separates sustainable operators from the rest.

A lower Cost Per FTD looks like a win on the dashboard, but it can be misleading. If a campaign brings users who deposit more often, trade across sports, politics, and economics, hold higher balances, and stay active through the NFL season and election cycles, they can deliver far greater long-term value. The strongest programs read ROAS and LTV together, and they watch post-deposit signals: deposit frequency, average deposit value, 30/60/90-day retention, cohort performance, and revenue per active trader. At Sense, we believe optimization should continue well past the first deposit, using first-party behavioral data and modeled LTV to keep pushing media investment toward higher-value traders. Because in prediction markets, sustainable growth is not how many users make a first deposit. It is how many come back for the next market.

Most events speak to one slice of the room. We built this one to be inclusive of every stakeholder shaping prediction markets: operators, founders, builders, and investors, on the same stage. In November, they will finally compare notes directly.

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