Kalshi CEO Snubs Polymarket, Names Three Heavier Hitters He Actually Worries About 🏋️

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour does not view Polymarket as his primary competitor, telling Front Office Sports that larger trading and betting operators pose a greater threat to his regulated US prediction market exchange. He named derivatives giant CME Group, brokerage Robinhood and sportsbook operators as the rivals he tracks most closely, recasting a contest widely framed as a two-horse race between Kalshi and Polymarket.

Mansour's stance reflects market share. Bank of America analysts put Kalshi at roughly 91% of the regulated US prediction market, with Polymarket second and Underdog third. Raw volume, however, runs closer. Over the past 30 days Kalshi traded about $9.8 billion against Polymarket's $9.9 billion, according to DeFi Rate. Kalshi still leads where it counts, holding roughly $1 billion of the $1.6 billion in industry open interest and listing about 97% of all active markets. "When I think about competition, I don't think about Polymarket, honestly, as much as some of the others," Mansour said, according to FOS.

Mansour pointed first to CME Group, which launched FanDuel Predicts with the sportsbook in December, trading event contracts on sports outcomes and economic data. Robinhood complicates the picture: it built its prediction markets hub on Kalshi's own exchange in 2025, then began routing some World Cup and baseball contracts to Rothera, a venue it operates with Susquehanna. DraftKings, Novig and Coinbase have also moved into prediction markets, making second place hard to call. Polymarket still leans on its offshore platform, which draws heavy trading volume from US users on a VPN.

The 2026 World Cup lifted both platforms, with a single World Cup winner market drawing tens of millions in daily bets. Mansour wants Polymarket to come under the regulated umbrella, arguing that insider trading cases on its international platform stain the broader industry. Two indictments sharpened that concern. Prosecutors charged Army soldier Gannon Van Dyke in the first federal case tied to prediction market bets, alleging he turned about $33,000 into more than $400,000 on the timing of the Maduro operation. Weeks later, prosecutors indicted Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo, who allegedly made roughly $1.2 million betting on Google's most-searched person of the year.