Americans wagered roughly $166 billion on sporting events in 2025, a sum that surpassed combined U.S. consumer spending on movies, recorded music, live concerts, books and museums, according to a Fortune analysis published July 26, 2026.
The figure, drawn from American Gaming Association data, represents only legal sportsbook handle and does not include prediction markets or tribal casino wagering that certain states do not require to be disclosed publicly.
Prediction markets surge to $24 billion a month
Combined monthly global trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket rose from less than $5 billion in September 2025 to about $24 billion in April 2026, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from The Block, a digital assets media and information firm.
Kalshi posted approximately $14.8 billion in notional trading volume in April 2026, a record for the platform, of which sports contracts accounted for roughly 80 percent, based on Pew’s reported category shares. Polymarket’s global platform recorded approximately $9 billion in monthly volume, of which sports contracts represented roughly 39 percent, with politics and cryptocurrency making up most of the remainder, according to the same Pew analysis.
Sports was the dominant segment across both platforms, accounting for the majority of combined monthly trading volume, while politics and cryptocurrency ranked next, well behind sports, according to Pew.
Who is placing the bets
Five percent of Americans 18 and older say they currently use prediction markets to make trades on sporting events. Males aged 18 to 34 are the most likely to do so, at 11 percent, more than twice the rate of the general population, according to SSRS polling published in May 2026.
Twenty-six percent of young men report using at least one sports betting, daily fantasy sports, prediction market, or gambling platform in the last six months, compared to 14 percent of the general public, a separate American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM)/Ipsos poll found.
One in five Americans (21%) reports being at least somewhat familiar with prediction markets. Familiarity with online sports betting is higher, at 35 percent. Even among men aged 18 to 24, familiarity with prediction markets remains below one-third, at 29 percent, according to the same AIBM/Ipsos poll.
That gap suggests the sector has significant room to grow as awareness spreads.
What people think they are doing
Among those who have heard of prediction markets, 91 percent of Americans view purchasing event contracts as financially risky, a level of concern on par with how they rate investing in cryptocurrency and placing a sports bet, the AIBM/Ipsos poll found. Among young men aged 18 to 24, that figure was 88 percent.
Forty-one percent of prediction market users said their top reason for using the platform was to make money. Behavioral researchers have noted that framing a wager as a financial instrument rather than a bet can lower perceived risk, making participation feel more like investing in the stock market than visiting a casino.
Kalshi is regulated in the United States by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Polymarket’s global platform is not regulated by the CFTC and is accessible to U.S. users only via VPN. Polymarket has launched a separate U.S.-compliant platform, but trading volume on it remained far smaller, approximately $1.3 billion in April 2026, compared with roughly $9 billion on Polymarket’s global platform, according to Pew Research Center.
A leisure market reshaped since 2018
In 2025, Americans placed roughly $166 billion in bets on sporting events, more than the entire U.S. movie, music, book, and museum industries generated in revenue combined. The figure does not include betting in online prediction markets run by companies like Kalshi and Polymarket, or betting in tribal casinos in certain states where they are not required to report such revenue.
The North American box office totaled $8.87 billion in 2025. Recorded music revenue hit a record $11.5 billion. Live music such as concerts and festivals brought in $18.51 billion. Book publishers tracked by the Association of American Publishers reported $14.6 billion for the year, and the U.S. museum industry generated an estimated $16.4 billion, bringing the combined total to roughly $70 billion, less than half what Americans wagered on sports.
The industry barely existed in most of the country before the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting in 2018. What followed was one of the fastest expansions of consumer activity in American history, from $6.6 billion wagered that first year to $166 billion in 2025.
Congress is currently weighing federal regulation of prediction markets, as platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have become major advertisers on and partners of professional sports leagues.
With younger Americans already reshaping how they spend free time and discretionary income, the trajectory of prediction markets will likely depend on whether legislators treat them primarily as financial products or as a new class of entertainment.
