If there was one theme running through this round of gambling and fintech earnings, it was prediction markets. Company after company used its second-quarter call to detail how fast its event-contract business is growing and how much it plans to spend defending or expanding it. The result was the clearest financial picture yet of a land grab that, a year ago, barely existed. The figures here come from the companies' earnings reports and calls and reporting by CNBC.
DraftKings: from $2.3 billion to $11 billion in a quarter
DraftKings gave the single most striking number. CEO Jason Robins said the annualized total volume on its predictions platform, which only launched in December 2025, jumped to $11 billion from $2.3 billion between April and July, with more than 600,000 customers having engaged so far. He expects that to "explode this NFL season," and the company plans to pour another $200 million to $300 million into the business this year.
Robins also pushed back on the idea that prediction markets cannibalize sportsbooks. DraftKings sees only about 1% customer overlap between its sportsbook and the largest prediction-market operator in states where both exist, which he argued shows the two products serve fundamentally different audiences; the company estimates 80% to 90% of prediction-market consumer volume comes from betting syndicates and institutional traders, not casual fans. DraftKings' pitch is that owning three layers of the stack, brokerage, exchange, and market maker, gives it an edge. Notably, the core business had a softer quarter: adjusted EBITDA of $114.6 million and revenue of $1.44 billion both missed Wall Street expectations.
Robinhood: event contracts now bigger than stocks and crypto
The most telling data point came from Robinhood, where event-contract revenue hit $156 million in the quarter, up roughly tenfold year over year. That is not a sideshow anymore: it out-earned Robinhood's equities trading and its crypto trading, trailing only options among its disclosed trading categories. The company launched its own CFTC-licensed exchange, Rothera, in June through a joint venture with Susquehanna, and said more than 3.5 billion contracts have already traded on it. For a brokerage built on stock trading, prediction markets quietly becoming a bigger revenue line than stocks is a remarkable turn.
Coinbase and FanDuel jump in too
The crypto exchange Coinbase said its prediction-markets revenue grew 106% quarter over quarter, with annualized revenue passing $100 million, though some analysts called that below expectations, and Coinbase's overall quarter disappointed. Flutter, FanDuel's parent, is retooling for speed: it is moving FanDuel Predicts sports and novelty contracts from the CME to Crypto.com, keeping CME only for financial-market contracts, so it can ship new products before the NFL season starts. Flutter framed FanDuel Predicts as a way to sign up customers in states before traditional sports betting is even legal there, and expects about $50 million in market-making revenue this year. Its quarter, and a surprise CEO change, we covered separately.
The legal cloud over all of it
All of this spending is happening while the product's legality is genuinely contested. New York sued Kalshi at the end of July, calling it an illegal gambling operation, and more than 40 state attorneys general have told the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission it does not have exclusive authority over sports-related event contracts. So the same quarter that produced these growth numbers also produced fresh lawsuits and a bipartisan wall of state pushback. The companies are, in effect, building as fast as they can while the courts decide whether they are allowed to.
Our take
This is the "arms race" quantified. A quarter ago it was a talking point; now there are dollar figures, and they are large enough that no major operator can ignore the category. DraftKings' most interesting claim is the one worth watching: that prediction markets are not stealing sportsbook customers but reaching a different, more professional crowd. If that holds, event contracts are additive rather than cannibalistic, which is exactly why everyone is racing in. It also fits what we heard from the other side of the ledger, where PENN pointedly stayed out, calling the whole thing an awkward position and waiting on the courts.
For bettors, the practical translation is that this football season you will be marketed to relentlessly by prediction platforms, with sign-up offers and heavy advertising, in their first full NFL run. The caution we keep repeating applies: these event contracts are federally regulated financial products, not state-licensed sportsbooks, and they do not all carry the same consumer protections, and their legal status is being actively litigated, as the South Carolina lawsuit and New York's suit against Kalshi show. The growth is real; so is the uncertainty. We will keep tracking both, and our Flutter earnings coverage has more on the FanDuel side.