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Alabama football just beat Georgia. Again. That’s right, the Crimson Tide went into Athens and spoiled the Dawgs night.
Many bettors and fans alike wrote off the Tide after its opening-season loss to Florida State. However, they’ve rallied off three wins since then and have shot back up in the national title odds, per the best online sportsbooks.
This is the part where we’d usually say that Alabama bettors have missed out on all the betting fun, but this Fall, that’d probably not the case. Nationally, prediction markets have absolutely taken off this football season. How much so? Keep reading for the shocking data.
Kalshi Trading Volumes Are At Record Highs
Kalshi is the best barometer for the success of prediction markets. That’s because, unlike Polymarket, it’s completely legal in the United States. Despite Alabama sports betting being banned, Kalshi works just fine. For now, it’s regulated more like a stock market than betting, that’s how they skirt around legal betting rules.
This past weekend, Kalshi broke its own record for trading activity. Not once, but twice. Saturday’s action blew past $260 million in trades, topping its previous record from Election Day 2024 ($245 million). Then Sunday came along and shattered that fresh high, clearing $275 million for the first time ever.
The surge comes entirely off sports contracts. Kalshi barely began offering them this year, and of course, football added gasoline to the fire. Of the $538 million traded across Kalshi this weekend, 98 percent involved sports. And more than 90 percent of that was straight-up football.
College football delivered $226 million by itself. The game between Bama and Georgia? It did $23.4 million — the most of any college game. Eight college games broke into eight-figure territory, which tells you just how widespread the action has become.
The pros were no different. Eight separate NFL games topped $10 million in volume apiece on Sunday. The crown jewel? Packers vs. Cowboys in primetime, an overtime thriller that racked up $57.2 million — the biggest single-game trade in Kalshi history and the first ever to clear the $50 million mark.
For perspective, your average NFL betting game at a regulated sportsbook handles about $60 million in wagers. Kalshi is starting to sniff that territory, but remember — trading volume isn’t the same thing as betting handle. Still, the trajectory is obvious: football is fueling Kalshi’s breakout, and the ceiling looks a lot higher than anyone expected.
Kalshi Is And Isn’t A One-Trick Pony
Kalshi’s recent success is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s easy to say, the popularity of football is carrying it to record highs. There’s some truth to that, but also some falsehood.
Football is indeed the stronghold here. Twenty-four of the top 25 events of the weekend, in terms of trading volume, were all football. The lone outsider? Golf’s Ryder Cup.
Across the three-day tournament, Ryder Cup trading hit $39.8 million. More than half of that came from individual matchups, with $21.4 million changing hands. Friday carried the weight, pulling in $15.5 million on its own before interest dipped. A lopsided U.S. performance didn’t help — by Saturday, activity had cooled off considerably.
Even then, the Ryder Cup couldn’t set a new golf record on Kalshi. It ended up as the platform’s second-biggest golf market ever, behind the St. Jude Classic during FedEx Cup play. Year-to-date, golf contracts have now pushed just under $500 million, which is only about 7% of total Kalshi action. See, it’s not just football that’s doing numbers on Kalshi.
Honestly, a more fair critique of Kalshi is not their non-football contracts. It’s their non-sports one. See, Kalshi likes to brand itself as a marketplace for current events, but that’s not really happening. Sports is pretty much doing all the volume on Kalshi, and that’s about it.
Back in July, the company was bragging about $2 billion in sports trades during its first six months of offering them. Fast forward to September, and sports alone did $2.4 billion in a single month. That’s 90% of total platform volume. The rest? A mix of economics and politics that can’t hold a candle to sports demand.
Will Prediction Markets Force Alabama To Legalize?
Alright, so why does any of this matter? It’s great that Kalshi is crushing it, but why should folks in Alabama give a damn?
Here’s why it matters: the success of Kalshi and other prediction markets might just force Alabama to legalize sports betting. State politicians have long avoided legalizing because they don’t want their residents betting. Alabama is a conservative state through and through, and well, betting still carries a stigma to it.
But Kalshi is fully legal to those Alabama residents. And so are popular offshore sportsbooks. So no matter the laws in place, there are means for bettors in Alabama to get action.
At that point, why not just legalize the thing? This, at least, allows politicians to regulate and police it in a way they see fit — plus earn tax dollars for the state. This is the reality we think Alabama lawmakers will be grappling with in the next legislative session. And that might be enough to push them toward making something finally happen, which would just give in-state bettors more options to wager they’d like to.
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