Sports futures contracts, among the hottest topics in the financial technology and gambling industries, showed potential during the 2025 Super Bowl to compete directly with live betting features offered by sportsbooks.
Kalshi filled 63% of its Super Bowl future event contracts—or about $17.4 million—after the game had already started, according to data provided to Sportico by the platform.
The company also recorded a 1,000% increase in new traders on its services during the week of the Super Bowl compared with the previous week. This was a similar to the surge the company saw before the 2024 presidential election following its introduction of political trades.
“Live trading and user engagement is a huge strong suit for us,” a Kalshi spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said Kalshi has launched 38 sports-related markets in the past three weeks and plans to open many more. Earlier this week, for example, Kalshi informed the federal government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) it would list contracts for whether individual NBA teams will reach the playoffs. It has also started listing contracts related to major golf tournaments.
Kalshi’s high volume of trading during the Super Bowl suggests the long-term possibility for the company and other firms entering prediction markets, such as Crypto.com, to stack up to one of the traditional sportsbooks’ most popular styles of betting: in-game wagers. These bets can elevate retention rates for platforms—to a point of concern for some addiction researchers.
Overall spending on Super Bowl event futures through Kalshi represented less than 5% of the handle of U.S. sportsbooks for the big game, but the company is still in the earliest stages of courting sports fans.
Kalshi has denied it offers an exact replica of gambling, though the company does use the word “bet” in its promotional materials. Unlike sports gambling, event futures include only two potential options and pit users against one another rather than the platform itself.
As Sportico has reported, major sports betting operators oppose sports event futures trading under its current setup because they believe it presents an unfair competitive threat—though they haven’t ruled out getting involved themselves if it becomes a business necessity and the regulatory environment becomes clearer.
Kalshi and Crypto.com do not need to follow state-by-state gambling regulations or taxation laws. Event futures trading, unlike regular sports betting, is overseen federally by the CFTC rather than individual states.
Despite the potential for regulatory or legal peril—a case challenging Kalshi’s election contracts remains ongoing—the company appears to be in the most comfortable position it has ever occupied when it comes to sports.
Kalshi has strong political connections: President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. is a company advisor, while Kalshi board member Brian Quintenz confirmed this week he will be nominated to lead the CFTC on a full-time basis.
Quintenz is a former CFTC commissioner who has spent the past two years as the head of crypto policy at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
In the meantime, acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham has stated she wants to gather more information before issuing a verdict on sports futures trading. Under Pham, the agency recently entered a 45-day review period of sports event contracts. Her team released a statement blasting prior “anti-innovation” and “regulation by enforcement” policies at the CFTC—widely seen as foreshadowing a more permissive stance toward new types of futures contracts.
