DraftKings reported continued momentum for DraftKings Predictions in a Form 8-K filing on June 9. Per the filing, the product hit $1.3 billion in annualized consumer volume in May, a 24% month-over-month increase from April, alongside $3.1 billion in annualized total volume traded, up 34% from April. The company noted the metrics are preliminary and unaudited. DraftKings stock rose on the disclosure.
DraftKings launched its prediction-market service in December 2025, so May represents roughly the sixth month of operation. The growth curve has been steep: in April, the company reported consumer volume crossing $1 billion annualized and total volume traded above $2.3 billion, increases of 38% and 43% month over month. May continued the climb, if at a slightly slower percentage pace.
What these numbers actually mean
The word doing the heavy lifting is "annualized." A $1.3 billion annualized figure is the May run-rate projected across a full year, not $1.3 billion traded in May. Divided back down, it implies roughly $110 million in actual consumer trading during the month, and the $3.1 billion total annualized figure implies about $260 million in total volume traded in May. That is real and fast-growing, but it is a fraction of DraftKings' core sportsbook, which handles billions of dollars in bets per month. Prediction markets are an early-stage, high-growth line of business, not yet a peer to the sportsbook.
The two figures are also measuring different things. "Consumer volume" is what customers traded. "Total volume traded" is larger because it includes DraftKings' own market-making activity, the firm posting prices on both sides of a contract to provide liquidity. The gap between $1.3 billion and $3.1 billion is, in effect, the size of that market-making layer, and on the Q1 earnings call CEO Jason Robins said it is already profitable.
DraftKings is building the whole stack
What separates DraftKings' approach from most rivals is how much of the value chain it intends to own. Most operators offering event contracts act as a broker, routing customer trades onto someone else's federally regulated exchange (Fanatics, for example, runs its World Cup product on an exchange operated by Crypto.com). DraftKings wants to control the entire pipeline. On the earnings call, Robins laid out the plan:
"We have also launched market making, which unlocks access to an additional layer of the value chain. Market making is already generating a positive return for us. In the coming weeks, we expect to launch our proprietary exchange and to begin offering combos. Together, these moves will accelerate innovation, improve the customer experience, and strengthen our economics."
Before the end of 2026, DraftKings says it will launch Railbird, its in-house designated contract market (the regulated venue where contracts are listed), fully roll out its Super App, and stand up its own exchange technology, including a futures commission merchant and a derivatives clearing organization. In plain terms, DraftKings is trying to be the broker, the exchange, the market maker, and the clearinghouse all at once. If it works, the company captures margin at every layer instead of paying a third party for the rails, and it is not dependent on an outside exchange's roadmap or rules.
Combos: the parlay comes to prediction markets
The most consequential product news may be the quietest. In May, DraftKings Predictions launched Combos, a parlay-style feature that lets a customer bundle two separate event contracts into a single trade for a larger potential payout. The company's own example: combining a Phillies run-line contract with a total-points contract on a Knicks-Spurs Finals game into one position.
This matters because the parlay is the single most important product in the modern sportsbook. Same-game and multi-leg parlays are where books make most of their margin, and they are what casual bettors most want to play. Porting that mechanic onto CFTC-regulated event contracts means a parlay-like product can be offered in states that have no legal sportsbook at all. That is the real prize: California, Texas, Georgia, and Florida together hold tens of millions of adults who cannot bet with a licensed online sportsbook, and a parlay-style prediction product is the closest thing to a sportsbook experience the law currently allows them. We laid out that land grab in our report on Fanatics and the official FIFA World Cup prediction markets.
The Super App
DraftKings also unveiled a Super App that merges its sportsbook, iGaming, lottery, and prediction-market products into a single nationwide application. The available features vary state by state depending on what each jurisdiction allows: a user in a full-service state might see sportsbook, casino, and predictions, while a user in a state with no legal sportsbook might see only the prediction-market and lottery products. The strategic logic is to have one app that is useful in all 50 states, with prediction markets filling the gap wherever the sportsbook cannot operate.
The money behind it
None of this is cheap. Robins said on the Q1 call that DraftKings expects to invest $200 million to $300 million in its predictions offering in 2026, the same range FanDuel has signaled for its own prediction-market push. That parallel is the throughline of the current industry moment: the two dominant operators are each pouring a quarter-billion dollars into event contracts at the same time the rest of the sector, FanDuel included, is cutting jobs to fund the pivot. The growth line and the layoff line are the same story viewed from two ends.
What it means for bettors
If you live in a state without legal online sports betting, this is the development to watch. Prediction markets were already the only legal way to take a position on games from home in California, Texas, Georgia, and (for practical purposes) Florida. With Combos, the experience is moving closer to a real sportsbook, parlays included. DraftKings building its own exchange and clearing stack should, over time, mean tighter pricing and deeper liquidity than a broker reselling someone else's venue.
If you live in a legal sportsbook state, a licensed book still gives you a deeper menu, live in-play betting, and usually better pricing than a binary event contract, so predictions remain an alternative rather than a replacement. And one caution applies everywhere: event contracts are a newer, federally regulated product, several states have challenged the sports-contract workaround, and the legal ground is less settled than a state-licensed sportsbook. The fast growth is real, but so is the regulatory overhang sitting underneath the entire category.
Our take
The headline number is impressive but small in context; the strategy underneath it is the story. DraftKings is making the most vertically integrated bet in US prediction markets, aiming to own the broker, the exchange (Railbird), the market making, and the clearing functions rather than renting them. Combos is the move that could turn a niche financial product into a genuine sportsbook substitute in the four big states that ban sportsbooks, and that is precisely where the $200 million to $300 million is pointed.
The risk is the same one that hangs over every player in this space: it is all built on a federal-contract framework that several states are actively contesting. DraftKings is spending as if that framework holds and expands. If it does, owning the full stack will look prescient. If the legal picture tightens, the company will have built an expensive set of rails into a smaller market than it planned for. Either way, the May numbers confirm that the prediction-market land grab is no longer a 2026 prediction. It is underway.
Disclosure: BettingInUnitedStates maintains affiliate relationships with some sportsbook operators (FanDuel and Fanatics among them) and earns commissions when readers sign up through links on this site. We do not currently have an affiliate relationship with DraftKings. We cover every operator, partner or not, on the same factual terms; this note is here so you can weigh it for yourself.
Sources: DraftKings Inc. Form 8-K (Item 7.01 Regulation FD Disclosure, June 9, 2026); Sports Betting Dime, "DraftKings Predictions Reports More Than $1 Billion in Annualized Consumer Volume for May" by Robert Linnehan (June 9, 2026); DraftKings Q1 2026 earnings call remarks from CEO Jason Robins. Operating metrics are preliminary and unaudited per the company. Market-structure and bettor-facing analysis are our own editorial commentary. This article is informational and not betting advice.