TLDR
- Sports made up 83% of prediction market open interest in October, up from 73% in September.
- Daily turnover rose 55% to an all-time high of $4.13 billion, per Jefferies.
- Open interest climbed 45% to a record $3.27 billion.
- Weekend combo bets leaned toward NFL and college football, helping DraftKings’ DKeX.
- Polymarket and Rothera posted monthly gains as non-sports volume also rose 55%.
Sports contracts tightened their grip on prediction market money in October. Sports made up 83% of open interest last month, up from 73% in September, according to a client report from Jefferies analyst Daniel Fannon.
Open interest is the total value of contracts that traders still hold. It rose 45% from September to a record $3.27 billion.
Trading activity also reached a new high. Daily turnover on yes/no exchanges climbed 55% in October to an all-time high of $4.13 billion, Fannon said.
Football and Basketball Drive Sports Volume
Sports event contracts averaged $2.978 billion in daily volume in October. That figure was up 55% from the month before.
The start of the 2026-27 NBA season helped lift activity. So did the busy stretch of the college football and NFL seasons.
Even with that growth, sports held a 78% share of average daily volume. That share was flat compared with September, because non-sports volume grew at the same pace.
Fannon also tracked how traders use combos, the prediction market term for parlays. Combo use rises on weekends, which suggests traders mostly use these multi-leg bets for sports.
“The weekend uplift is consistent with combos skewing toward NFL and college football activity,” Fannon wrote. He named DraftKings’ DKeX as one of the platforms benefiting from the trend.
Fannon said DKeX shows higher combo use on both weekdays and weekends. He described it as having “a structurally more sports- and combo-heavy product mix.”
Polymarket and Rothera Post Gains
Much of October’s growth went to the largest prediction market exchange. Still, smaller operators also posted gains, according to the report.
Polymarket averaged $655 million in daily volume, up 50% from September and up 395% from a year ago. Its share of the platforms Jefferies tracks held flat at 17%.
Other tracked platforms averaged $309 million in daily volume combined. That was up 56% on the month and up 710% from a year earlier, with market share flat at about 7%.
Rothera, which launched in June, averaged $49 million in daily volume, a 55% monthly increase. Its share of industry volume slipped to 1.2% from 1.5% in September.
Rothera is a joint venture between Robinhood Markets and Susquehanna International Group. It is one of the fastest-growing all-or-nothing exchanges, according to Casino.org.
Non-sports contracts also grew last month. Their average daily volume rose 55% to $843 million, a gain Casino.org linked to trader interest in political event contracts.
The Jefferies report arrived on Election Day, November 3. Casino.org said near-term non-sports growth likely hinges on cryptocurrency and financial derivatives, among other categories.
