TLDR
- A new report estimates 17 million Americans will use prediction markets in 2026, with 43% less likely than average to identify as gamblers
- There is roughly a 40-50% overlap between sports bettors and prediction market users, far less than many assumed
- Prediction market users engage with cryptocurrency three times more than the national average and lean heavily toward DeFi
- The user base is 90% male, the most gender-skewed audience the research firm has ever studied
- Top user concentrations are in tech hubs like Nashville, Austin, and Fort Collins rather than traditional financial centers
New Data Challenges Assumptions About Prediction Market Users
A new behavioral analysis from the ELI Report is reshaping what we know about who actually uses prediction markets in the United States. The report, built from 100 million online signals across 220 million accounts, finds that these traders look a lot more like DeFi enthusiasts than sports gamblers.
Ian Baer, who created the ELI Report, told Gambling Insider he expected to find a crowd of “crypto bros and sports gamblers.” The data told a different story.
According to the report, roughly 17 million Americans are expected to use prediction markets this year. That is a large and growing user base drawing attention from major companies.
About 40-50% of prediction market users also bet on sports. That overlap is smaller than many industry observers assumed.
Forty-three percent of prediction market users are less likely than the average American to call themselves gamblers. Many say they dislike the element of chance found in traditional gambling.
The report found that prediction market users engage with cryptocurrency at three times the national average. They are also 2.8 times more likely to choose high-risk investments and 13 times more likely to be interested in politics.
Baer said these users tend to focus on political trends, economic data, and how policy decisions affect markets. He described them as students of data rather than casual bettors.
Prediction Markets Draw Tech Workers, Not Wall Street Traders
One finding that stood out was where these users live. Rather than clustering in New York or other financial centers, prediction market traders are concentrated in tech hubs.
Cities like Nashville, Austin, Fort Collins, and Louisville showed the highest concentrations. Baer said this makes sense because the user base skews toward coders and tech workers.
He pointed to an “attitudinal split” between stock market investors and prediction market users. Stock investors tend to believe in traditional financial institutions, Baer said. Prediction market users lean toward decentralized finance and often prefer not to keep money in traditional banks.
The report also found that prediction market users are four times more likely than average to have played fantasy sports. Baer said this reflects their preference for “probabilistic” thinking over pure chance.
Many of these users also view prediction market data as more reliable than traditional news sources or political polls. They follow legacy media but treat those reports as data points rather than definitive answers.
Baer said he would trust prediction market odds over political polls, citing repeated polling failures in recent presidential elections.
The gender breakdown was another striking finding. The prediction market user base is 90% male, the most skewed of any audience the ELI Report has studied.
Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have recently run influencer campaigns aimed at attracting more female users. Baer said whichever platform succeeds in reaching women could establish itself as a major player in the space.
Sportsbooks including DraftKings, FanDuel, and Fanatics have begun entering the prediction market space as the audience continues to grow.
The ELI Report gathers its data through a system that anonymizes information from companies like GlobalWebIndex and YouGov. It uses AI to analyze retail, media, and social behaviors. Baer emphasized the system relies on actual user actions, not predictive modeling or guesswork.
The prediction market industry has roots going back to the Iowa Electronic Market in 1988. PredictIt launched in 2014 as a real-money exchange tied to academia, and the sector has expanded rapidly since then.
As of May 2026, platforms continue to compete for new users, with gender diversity and geographic expansion emerging as key battlegrounds.
