In March 2026, Kalshi and Polymarket processed more than $22bn in trades. Not stocks and not commodities. The trades were on questions:
- Will inflation rise above 3%?
- Who will win the next election?
- When does the Fed cut rates?
Prediction markets are the closest thing we have to a real-time, crowd-sourced forecast of the future. They are the front page of tomorrow.
An industry beyond two platforms
Two years ago, this was a story about two companies. Now there is a whole ecosystem.
In March 2026, former Kalshi employees launched 5c(c) Capital. Their goal is to raise $35m and fund around 20 prediction market startups over the next two years. Marc Andreessen and the CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket are backers. A good rule of thumb in business is to follow the money and the first adopters.
Where the big firms are hiring
Another interesting economic indicator is hiring trends. Elite trading firms have started posting jobs in prediction markets.
DRW, the Chicago trading firm, posted an open Prediction Markets Trader role. The job covers market-making on Polymarket and Kalshi, arbitrage, and fair-value modeling.
Susquehanna International Group posted a Trader – Prediction Markets position inside their Quantitative Trading + Strategy division, focused on sports and politics contracts.
These firms do not move fast into new industries and both are hiring now.
LinkedIn lists more than 445 Prediction Markets jobs open in the U.S. right now. Two years ago, almost none of those roles existed. All of this makes sense when weekly volume on prediction platforms went from $20m to over $6bn in under two years.
The conference calendar fills up
A few years ago, you would have struggled to find a room full of people who cared about prediction markets. Not anymore.
The Manifest forecasting conference began in 2023 and has grown every year. In March 2026, NEXT.io held a dedicated prediction market focused event at its annual NEXT Summit New York. NEXTPredict.io, a sister site to Next.io, will launch a dedicated event, the World’s Prediction Markets Summit, in October.
The calendar is filling up.
The Prediction Conference in Las Vegas runs April 22-24, 2026, with 300 seats for industry insiders. Predict 2026 is booked for Las Vegas in December. The SBC Summit Americas added a Prediction Markets Forum covering regulation, technology, and market design.
Two Las Vegas conferences in one year. The niche label no longer fits.
What the 2024 election did for media coverage
The 2024 presidential election changed how newsrooms think about prediction markets. Polymarket called the outcome hours before the major networks did.
And the deals came fast. In December 2025, CNN named Kalshi as its exclusive prediction market data partner.
CNBC signed a multi-year exclusive with Kalshi days later and put data into Squawk Box and Fast Money.
In April 2026, Fox Corporation announced Kalshi data across FOX News, FOX Business, FOX Weather, and FOX One.
Fast Company called this a new data layer for news coverage.
CNN, CNBC, and Fox do not agree on much. They agree on this.
Why the economics matter
The financial case for prediction markets is interesting. The informational case is more interesting.
Traditional forecasting runs through credentialed experts. Economists. Government agencies. Think tanks.
Prediction markets run through anyone willing to put money behind what they believe in. People who are wrong lose while people who are right profit.
Businesses use prediction markets to hedge against regulatory changes or commodity price swings. Policymakers use market-implied probabilities to understand what the public believes, not what the public says in a survey. Researchers use Metaculus to track long-term questions on AI timelines, global health, and geopolitical risk where traditional data falls short.
The risks are real
CertiK’s report found three platforms, Kalshi, Polymarket, and Opinion, control more than 95% of global volume. Such concentration creates fragility. The same report raised concerns about wash trading inflating volume numbers, especially around incentive campaigns.
On political contracts, whether markets reflect public opinion or shape public opinion has no clean answer. Regulators are watching. Scrutiny will grow as volume continues to increase.
Prediction markets now have the volume, the institutional hiring, the media presence, the conference calendar, and the venture capital to outlast any single election or news cycle.
Whether you think this is good or not, get ready, because it’s happening.