Kalshi made more than $430 million in fees during the World Cup, as it continues to catch up to the largest sportsbooks in revenue, while those on the taker side of trades — mostly retail users — had their worst day ever in terms of losses during Sunday’s final.
The prediction market routinely processed more than $1 billion in volume per day during the competition, totaling $53.53 billion between the first day of matches and the final.
Total fee revenue from June 11 through July 19 was $430.4 million. That is more than Kalshi’s entire fee revenue between its launch and the end of this year’s Super Bowl.
That included $134.3 million on fees from soccer, plus another $74.4 million on fees from parlays, with soccer making up an extremely large portion of all parlay volume.
The prediction market set a new record for volume 12 times and fees five times, but peaked during the early knockout stages, thanks to a high volume of matches, which made for parlay opportunities, and the involvement of the U.S. and Mexico, which drew a disproportionate amount of activity. July 11’s $2.1 billion in volume and $17.2 million in fees was never topped, not even by the final. The seven-day average of volume and fees peaked even earlier, at the week ended July 7.
In the days following the World Cup, volume has unsurprisingly been lower. However, it is still above pre-World Cup highs. Volume topped $1 billion in each of the first four days after the tournament ended before dipping to $935 million on Thursday.
Parlays became a larger share of volume than ever, routinely topping 30% during the World Cup. Because they are traded at long odds and the maker side — which puts up more money — is usually a professional or institutional market maker, parlays’ share of volume relative to their share of overall activity can arguably be inflated at times. Taker-side volume, which strips out all bets from market makers, averaged more than $400 million during the tournament, almost double the pre-World Cup average.
Taker losses
Takers — those who accepted resting orders made by market makers — lost more than $70 million just on trades made on the day, with further losses on bets made earlier. That was the biggest loss for takers of any day in Kalshi’s history.
Most activity from retail traders is on the taker side, though they are generally able to act as market makers as well, except on parlays.
The World Cup winner market — which acted as a future for most of the tournament, and then became the match-winner market for the final — was easily the biggest market in Kalshi history by volume, with more than $1.51 billion traded. Though the action wasn’t overwhelmingly one-sided, the high volume contributed to it still being the biggest loss for takers in Kalshi history. Across all trades in the market, regardless of the date they were placed, takers lost $52 million before fees, or $59.6 million after.
The vast majority of other markets around the final were losers for takers too, often by bigger margins in relative terms. Bets on both teams to score, Lionel Messi to score, total goals, the winner after 90 minutes, and the competition’s top scorer were big losers for takers as well. The only notable wins were on Ferran Torres to score and the number of corners in the game. Most parlays lost too, with a bet on Argentina to win and Messi to score being the day’s most popular multi-leg bet. Total taker losses on parlays were $19 million, high but not as high as the earlier knockout stages when there were more multi-game parlay opportunities.
In total, takers lost $288 million before fees between the start of the World Cup and its end, or almost $720 million when fees are included.
