Key Takeaways:
Kalshi posted $5.42B in April 2026 taker quantity, surpassing Polymarket’s $1.99B for the primary time. Polymarket collected $29.22M in April charges regardless of trailing Kalshi in quantity, signaling higher-value contracts. Prediction market open curiosity hit $1.11B on Could 1, 2026, with Kalshi and Polymarket holding 98% of it.
Kalshi Holds $630M in Open Curiosity as Sector-Extensive OI Tops $1.1B on the Begin of Could
Primarily, prediction markets are platforms the place members purchase and promote contracts tied to the result of future occasions, from elections and sports activities to crypto costs and financial indicators. Contract costs mirror the gang’s collective likelihood estimate of an consequence, settling at $1 if right or $0 if not.
The mannequin has roots stretching again to Nineteenth-century election betting on Wall Avenue, and gained educational credibility in 1988 when College of Iowa professors launched the Iowa Digital Markets to check whether or not crowd-sourced contract costs might outforecast conventional polls. It was realized that they may.
Industrial platforms adopted, with Intrade drawing mainstream consideration within the 2000s earlier than U.S. authorized stress shut it down. Augur introduced the idea to blockchain within the 2010s, although the platform by no means gained significant traction. The actual inflection got here within the 2020s. Polymarket launched in 2020, constructed on Polygon and settled in USDC.
The following yr, Kalshi acquired CFTC approval as a Designated Contract Market in 2021, turning into the primary federally regulated prediction change in U.S. historical past. The 2024 U.S. presidential election pushed each platforms into mainstream protection and drove billions in month-to-month quantity. Complete 2025 business quantity exceeded $63 billion, and month-to-month figures peaked close to $25.7 billion in March 2026 earlier than April settled at $8.6 billion in taker phrases.
Dune Analytics’ knowledge from person @datadashboards, signifies that Kalshi generated $5.42 billion in taker quantity final month, giving it a transparent lead over Polymarket’s $1.99 billion. The hole between the 2 platforms has widened significantly since late 2025, when the pair traded nearer to parity. Predict.enjoyable ranked third with $579.2 million in April taker quantity, adopted by Opinion at $376.2 million and Limitless at $205 million. All different platforms mixed accounted for roughly $12.2 million.
Month-to-month notional quantity throughout the sector reached $29.8 billion in April, the Dune dashboard exhibits. Kalshi led that metric as properly, logging $14.8 billion. Polymarket posted $9 billion in notional phrases, with its separate Polymarket U.S. product contributing a further $1.26 billion after the platform re-entered the American market legally in late 2025 through the QCEX acquisition.
Prediction market transaction quantity highlights a completely completely different story. Polymarket processed 87.4 million transactions in April in comparison with Kalshi’s 94.4 million. The 2 platforms collectively accounted for the overwhelming share of the sector’s 184.3 million complete month-to-month transactions.
Person counts remained Polymarket‘s clearest benefit. The platform drew 678,342 distinctive customers in April, greater than eight occasions Kalshi’s implied person base. Limitless adopted at 71,203 customers, with predict.enjoyable at 18,553 and Opinion at 3,423.
Open curiosity throughout the sector stood at $1.11 billion as of Could 1, 2026. Kalshi held $630.7 million of that complete whereas Polymarket carried $449.9 million. Predict.enjoyable, Opinion, and Limitless every held properly below $15 million in open positions.
Sector Income
Month-to-month charges generated throughout the sector reached $31.15 million in April. Polymarket collected $29.22 million of that complete, a determine primarily based on decision value and mergeable quantities. Limitless adopted at $1.51 million, with Predict and Opinion producing $260,000 and $154,000 respectively.
The payment figures point out that Polymarket, regardless of trailing Kalshi in taker quantity, continues to extract a disproportionate share of sector income. Its merchants seem to position higher-value contracts on common, a sample per its world person base and deep liquidity on high-profile markets.
April’s numbers prolong a development development that started accelerating in late 2024. Complete month-to-month taker quantity sat beneath $500 million as lately as mid-2024, which means the sector has grown greater than 17-fold in below two years. Kalshi and Polymarket now management an estimated 85% to 95% of complete prediction market business quantity, with educational platforms like PredictIt and the Iowa Digital Markets working at a fraction of that scale.