The forecast awakens: navigating the rise of prediction markets

A gawky kid growing up in Lebanon, Tarek Mansour had a tiger mom who pushed him to score perfect in exams. He had only one goal in mind: to excel at everything.

Now, at just 29, that dream has come true. The unkempt MIT graduate who’s always in a hoodie is the co-founder of Kalshi – meaning “everything” in his native tongue Arabic. A prediction markets platform where users trade on future events by exchanging "yes" and “no” contracts, Kalshi has become a Wall Street darling, drawing in angel investors such as billionaire Charles Schwab, who called it “a company that could fundamentally change financial markets” – his first such endorsement in decades.

On 24 September, the brand officially broke into the mainstream when South Park aired an episode about prediction markets (below), featuring Cartman and Kyle clashing over a rage bait wager against the latter’s mum. Overnight, social media filled with viral clips from the show. Kalshi’s monthly trading volume soared from $875 million in August to $4.4 billion in October, while its valuation hit $11 billion in the following month. This is only the beginning.

Sensing the cash, behemoth gambling firms are flocking in, with DraftKings acquiring the newly licensed trading platform Railbird and Underdog unveiling its own sports prediction markets plan. But as operators are just laying down the groundwork, many might assume it is still too early for affiliates to jump on board – or is it? 

Anatomy of a hype 

Arguably, the most notable overlap between prediction markets and traditional betting in the US lies in the growing range of opportunities for users to bet – or, as Kalshi prefers to put it legally, trade – on sports outcomes.

BettingUSA founders Mike Murphy and Wesley Burns first began exploring early prediction markets shortly after PASPA was overturned in 2018. With only a few states embracing sports betting at the time, it made sense to look into adjacent platforms such as the university-run PredictIt and the Iowa Electronic Markets to expand their coverage. Although legalisation has since swept across most states, Murphy and Burns believe prediction markets could still provide an alternative in “significant but closed-off markets like Texas and California”.

This view aligns with BettingHero’s July 2025 research, which found that among 255 US bettors surveyed, prediction markets were most appealing to offshore players in unregulated states, with 96% likely to try the new vertical compared to 68% offshore users in regulated states.

Although prediction markets span a broad range of topics, from celebrity gossip to climate change and financials, user interest still gravitates toward sports. During the first month of the NFL season in September 2025, sports accounted for nearly 90% of Kalshi’s trading volume. Alex Windsor, CMO at GameTime Digital (below), likens this dominance to what’s seen in other mature markets.

“In countries like the UK, which has a long-standing regulated betting market, the majority of bets placed are still on sports. Even though we can bet on things like who’ll win Big Brother or other non-sporting events here, sports remains what most people wager money on,” Windsor explains.

But in a politics-mad country, is the answer really that simple? While prediction markets are not new, a key milestone came with Kalshi’s successful appeal against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2024, which ended an 88-year de facto ban on political betting via regulated exchanges. Fuelled by the platform’s flashy real-time billboards during New York City’s mayoral race, prediction markets have since drawn more attention for their election offerings. According to SemRush’s October data, “Kalshi election” and “Kalshi election odds” ranked among the top five search terms from US users.

With the traditional sports betting scene now “crowded and hypercompetitive,” Murphy and Burns encourage fellow affiliates to look beyond sports and explore prediction markets. “There are far fewer affiliates focused on betting on elections and pop culture, so right now is a prime opportunity to find a niche, establish authority and compete effectively.”

Where do affiliates sit?

Positioning themselves as distinct from traditional operators, how do prediction market providers shape their brand strategies? One thing’s certain – the demand for partnerships is strong. In a LinkedIn post, Kalshi’s growth operations lead, Brandon Beckhardt, announced that the company is “in hyper-scaling mode” and actively seeking affiliates. Listed giants are already piling in, with Gambling.com Group and Better Collective adding Kalshi promo codes to their Rotowire and Action Network sites.

Still, it’s fair to question how much of prediction markets’ partnership activity is reserved for specialised iGaming affiliates. Beyond the South Park episode, both Kalshi and Polymarket have been doubling down on mainstream collaborations, securing partnerships with the NHL and having their market data integrated into Google Finance tools. 

According to a partnership manager at a leading affiliate group who prefers to remain anonymous, there is “a synergy” between prediction markets and sites with “a large engaged following” like Covers and Action Network, but less so with affiliates that rely on pure SEO play. However, he adds, the latter can still deliver high lead value, attracting regulated bettors who convert well and spend more. 

Murphy and Burns are not shying away from the fierce competition: “If you’re a traditional SEO affiliate publishing pages targeting terms like ‘how prediction markets work’ or ‘best prediction markets’, you are competing against well-funded super affiliates; If you are publishing news updates, you are competing against ESPN, Politico, The Atlantic and many others.”

The best way to cut through the mainstream buzz, as the duo explains, is by addressing players’ information gap through an “explain, then convert” approach. As funny as the South Park episode is, it does little to clarify how prediction markets actually work – and that’s exactly where affiliates come in, breaking down the fundamentals in simple terms. Given the news-driven nature of this emerging niche, affiliates also need to stay closely tuned to the cycles. “Set it and forget it isn’t a great idea in sports betting, but it’s even harder to pull off successfully in prediction markets,” they add.

Windsor agrees with BettingUSA and says there is still “a long way to go for player education in this sector”, comparing the situation to the months immediately after the PASPA appeal. “At that time, many operators were quite restrictive about working with affiliates. They didn’t fully understand the value affiliates bring or the players they can attract to platforms. I think Kalshi and other prediction markets will eventually see those benefits,” he explains. “Affiliates can educate by covering what’s available to wager on, how it works, what happens if players win or lose and how to deposit and withdraw money correctly.”

Another challenge is figuring out the partnership's nitty-gritty – much of it has been kept in the dark. Murphy notes that “not all prediction markets offer public affiliate programmes, and there aren’t yet as many platforms to promote overall”, while Windsor currently only does CPA deal with Kalshi through an affiliate network. 

As the anonymous partnership manager reveals, current commission rates aren’t exactly enticing. While the CPA sits at around $300 for a new sports bettor and $100 for a new DFS or Pick’em customer, prediction market operators are offering closer to $100 or less. Some even pay based on trading volume, such as $5 for every $1,000 traded within the first 30 days.

Nevertheless, with prediction markets only just breaking into the mainstream, Windsor believes operators and affiliates are still in a “chicken-and-egg situation”, testing the waters with each other. Over time, as platforms gain a clearer picture of traders’ lifetime value, deal structures may well change for the better.

Predict the prediction market

Despite its historic win against the CFTC, Kalshi’s legal odyssey is far from over. The platform now faces warnings and lawsuits from states such as Nevada and Massachusetts. Within a month of launching in 140 countries in October 2025, Romanian regulators had already blacklisted Kalshi, while the Netherlands is weighing legal actions. Polymarket, meanwhile, was found to have as much as 25% of its activity over the past three years linked to wash trading, an illegal manipulation tactic where the same entity buys and sells the contract to create false market interest.

For BettingUSA, this evolving situation means affiliates not only need to “pay close attention to legal updates and be ready to adjust”, but also turn it into content, educating audiences on “what’s legal in where and what’s changing as court cases resolve and regulators become increasingly involved”.

Having seen the downfall of sweepstakes in the US following bans in several states with Pragmatic Play exiting the vertical entirely, one might wonder whether prediction markets could face the same fate. Windsor says he expects “a lot of movement” in the next six months. Currently, affiliates do not need a licence to work with prediction markets, but as the sector becomes more mainstream, regulators might require both operators and affiliates to apply for one, particularly in states where sports betting is already legal.

That said, with Donald Trump Jr sitting on the advisory boards of both Kalshi and Polymarket, Windsor believes “things might end quite well”. Although major sportsbooks are losing customers to new rivals, as the anonymous affiliate suggests, their diversification into the sector means “there will be a group with a vested interest in positive regulation”.

Ultimately, given the fast-paced nature of the iGaming industry, it is better to get in early than be late to the party. “If you look at the affiliates in the US who are still doing well, they are the ones who got in early – even before PASPA was repealed in 2018. They’d already built websites and started growing audiences,” Windsor explains. “So I don’t think it would do any harm for affiliates to start looking into prediction markets now, building websites, forums and an online presence around the topic.”

Will Kalshi and prediction markets become “everything” for US bettors? The future is uncertain, but it is now affiliates’ turn to buy “yes” and “no” contracts on this particular new wager. 

This article reflects developments up to November 2025.