The month of may has started with a bang, with Prediction Markets notional volume hitting ATH alongside PRED’s volume, alot of things have happened in traditional industry. Let’s take a look
The week's most surprising sports prediction market story wasn't about basketball or football - it was horse racing.
The 2026 Kentucky Derby - the 152nd Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs on Saturday May 2 became the first major sporting event where the two biggest U.S. prediction markets effectively walked away. Kalshi had never offered a Kentucky Derby contract, and 2026 was no exception. Polymarket opened a 2026 Derby market and then refunded every position, with traders who had entered positions on Renegade, Commandment, or other horses getting their money back with no replacement market offered.
Despite this, Polymarket hosted 101 active Kentucky Derby-related markets generating $3.1 million in trading volume covering adjacent contracts, jockey props, and strikingly a "SCOTUS accepts sports event contract case by...?" market that was the most active contract on the entire Kentucky Derby prediction hub, reflecting how deeply the legal saga had overtaken the sport itself.
On April 27, Bloomberg published a landmark deep-dive that crystallised the existential challenge facing the legacy sportsbook industry
Bloomberg's piece noted that in the nearly two decades since FanDuel was founded in Edinburgh, the company had grown to lead the U.S.'s $17.5 billion online sports betting market with a 35% market share and 4.8 million monthly players in 2025. Yet as users flocked to Kalshi and Polymarket, Flutter Entertainment : FanDuel's parent had lost more than half its value since August, a drop of some $30 billion in market capitalisation.
Flutter's stock had fallen 65% from its 52-week high by the time of the Bloomberg piece, with shares sitting near lows not seen since May 2022.