Prediction markets are becoming more popular, particularly with sports. Many sports fans are turning to them during big moments like championship finals, uncertain situations such as key injuries, or when questions around team performance spark debate. One of the larger prediction market platforms posted about $2.3 billion in trading volume during a single week, with much of that activity tied to major sporting events late in the season. That level of activity shows just how prediction markets are moving beyond niche use cases and into more mainstream use alongside other ways fans analyse outcomes.
Prediction markets feel familiar even if you have never used one. They sit somewhere between traditional sports betting, fantasy leagues and informal office pools. That overlap makes them easier to grasp than they might first appear. So let’s take a closer look at what prediction markets are and how sports fans can use them.
What are prediction markets?
Prediction markets allow people to buy and sell positions on future outcomes. While they are increasingly associated with sport, similar markets are also used to forecast outcomes in areas like politics, economics and major world events. In sports, those outcomes are usually straightforward, like a team winning a game, a player reaching a statistical milestone or a club qualifying for the playoffs.
That could mean a market on whether Nikola Jokic wins another MVP award, whether Manchester City finishes top of the Premier League, or whether Max Verstappen wins a particular race during the Formula One season. The structure remains simple, even when the underlying analysis becomes complex.
Instead of placing a fixed wager, a user will typically buy a contract that pays out if the outcome occurs. The price of that contract reflects the market’s current view of how likely the event is. A higher price suggests greater confidence, while a lower price reflects doubt or uncertainty.
Prices are not static. They move as people react to new information like injuries, form changes, schedule difficulty or shifting narratives. If a key player misses time or a team’s momentum changes, market confidence tends to adjust quickly. Prediction markets act like a live scoreboard for opinion, updating as the situation evolves.
How prediction markets differ from sports betting
Traditional sportsbooks set odds and manage risk internally. Prediction markets rely more on users trading with each other, which means prices are shaped by collective behaviour rather than a single operator’s decisions.
Some practical differences stand out:
- Outcomes are usually framed as clear yes or no questions
- Prices reflect perceived probability rather than fixed odds
- The emphasis is on whether the market’s view feels accurate
This can feel closer to debating probabilities than picking winners. Instead of asking whether a team will cover a spread, you are asking whether the market’s confidence aligns with what you are seeing across games, weeks or even entire seasons.
Another important distinction is that prediction markets often fall under a different regulatory or operational framework than traditional sportsbooks. Because they are structured around forecasting outcomes rather than offering fixed odds betting, they are sometimes treated differently from a legal standpoint.
This is why some prediction platforms are accessible in places where traditional sports betting is restricted or not available. For users, that does not change how the markets function day to day, but it does help explain why prediction markets are attracting interest from a broader group of sports fans.
Navigating prediction markets with the help of sports media
One challenge with prediction markets is that there are not many well-known options, especially compared to traditional sportsbooks or fantasy platforms. For sports fans who are curious but unfamiliar with the space, that can make prediction markets harder to find and harder to navigate.
That is starting to change as major media organisations find value in real-time probability data. For example, CNBC recently signed a multi-year deal to add real-time prediction market data from Kalshi into its TV broadcasts and digital platforms beginning next year, bringing probabilities about future events, including sports outcomes into mainstream coverage.
Analysis-focused sites like Covers already track how expectations shift across different sports, from weekly matchups to season-long outcomes. By providing context and comparisons, they can also help readers find apps like these and understand how prediction markets fit alongside more familiar sports coverage, making them easier to navigate rather than unfamiliar to approach.
Prediction markets themselves are less about replacing analysis and more about visualising collective belief. When paired with established sports coverage, they become easier to understand, easier to contextualise, and easier to use as part of how fans follow games, players, and seasons over time.
How to use prediction markets
You can use prediction markets in different ways, but they are often turned to at key moments, particularly when uncertainty is high or opinions start to diverge. Prediction markets can also be used as a way to add context to debates, rather than as something that needs constant attention.
In practice, prediction markets are most often used for:
- Sense-checking opinions during award races, such as whether Nikola Jokic remains a realistic MVP contender
- Adding context during playoff pushes, especially when teams on the bubble divide fan opinion
- Supporting fantasy decisions, particularly around rotations, workload, or late-season rest
- Grounding office pools and group chats, by giving everyone a shared probability reference
Rather than replacing personal judgment, prediction markets help structure debates that fans are already having about NFL predictions, shifting conversations away from absolutes and toward likelihoods.
Prediction markets are not a shortcut to certainty, and they do not replace watching games, following teams or forming your own opinions. They are simply another way of thinking about uncertainty, especially in sports where outcomes are rarely clear-cut.
For sports fans, they tend to work best as:
- A way to frame debates more clearly
- A complement to fantasy leagues and office pools
- A tool for tracking how sentiment shifts over time
Used in the right way, prediction markets add structure to conversations that fans already enjoy having. They put numbers around uncertainty, help contextualise big moments, and reflect how confidence changes across a season, without pretending that uncertainty can ever be eliminated.
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