Kalshi Builds $110B Trading Lead Over Polymarket in 2026

Kalshi has recorded $174.5 billion in trading volume since the start of 2026, around 2.7 times Polymarket’s $64.9 billion. Data tracked by Paradigm shows that sports markets account for most of Kalshi’s activity.

Kalshi’s advantage is heavily tied to sports. Of its year-to-date volume, $127.2 billion came from sports-related markets, equal to almost 73% of the platform total.

The concentration also shows where prediction markets are moving closest to the traditional sportsbook business. Sports combination markets were the largest part of Kalshi’s sports activity, generating $36.4 billion. They represented 28.6% of all sports volume on the platform.

Basketball and Tennis Add $48B

Among individual sports, basketball generated the highest volume:

Basketball – $25.8 billion (20.3%);
Tennis – $22.4 billion (17.6%);
Soccer – $16.4 billion (12.9%);
Baseball – $10 billion (7.9%).

Taken together, basketball and tennis produced more than $48 billion. However, neither matched the volume generated by sports combinations.

The figures also show how far Kalshi’s trading mix has shifted toward sport. Bitcoin price markets generated $22.5 billion, equivalent to 12.9% of total volume. Political events accounted for only 1.3%. Another $19.8 billion was not assigned to a thematic category in the dataset.

Polymarket Has a Different Mix

Polymarket posted $64.9 billion in volume over the same period. Its classified activity was spread more evenly across several areas:

Sports produced $18.5 billion, representing 28.5% of Polymarket’s total;
Political markets contributed $8.4 billion, or 12.9%;
Cryptocurrency contracts generated $8 billion, equal to 12.3%.

A large share of activity remained outside the available category breakdown. Unclassified markets accounted for $24.7 billion, roughly 38% of Polymarket’s total volume.

Overall, Kalshi generated about $109.6 billion more trading activity during the period. The difference in sports was even sharper: Kalshi’s $127.2 billion was nearly seven times Polymarket’s sports volume.

Sports Sit at the Center of Kalshi’s Lead

For sportsbook operators, the composition of the volume is as relevant as the size of the gap. Kalshi has built its 2026 lead around sports and sports combinations, products that compete for the same events and much of the same customer attention as conventional betting.

That scale also creates concentration risk. A large part of Kalshi’s activity now comes from the segment facing the strongest regulatory debate over event contracts. Polymarket’s classified volume is more evenly divided between sports, politics and crypto. Whether Kalshi can preserve its current lead will therefore depend heavily on the durability of sports trading and the regulatory treatment of those markets.