Esports catching major league sports in prediction market volume

League of Legends and Counter-Strike 2 matches are seeing trading volumes that are nearing those of major league sports at prediction markets. 

An analysis of Polymarket trading over the past year found an average of over $1 million was traded on LoL matches, with the highest match recording $28.3 million. In comparison, NFL, NBA, and NHL matches all traded more, but the gap is not as large as it used to be. 

NFL matches led the way with an average of $5.2 million, followed by NBA at $4.2 million, and NHL at just over $3 million, according to analysis by Doc’s Sports. 

“A few years ago, if you told a sportsbook manager that a video game match would trade like a hockey game, you would have been laughed out of the room. That is not the case anymore,” said Raphael Esparza, the Vegas Sports Informer at Doc’s Sports. 

“What is happening here is what happens in any market with real money behind it. Enough people are pricing these matches that the number on the screen starts to mean something. The audience is not only watching the game, it is taking a position on it,” Esparza added.

Trading on sports is increasingly seen as a financial investment strategy by Gen Z, with the rise of prediction markets making that option available nationwide. 

Overall, esports trading volume is growing considerably. At Kalshi, users traded over $344 million on events in the last 30 days, up from $113 million in April. 

LoL and CS2 make up the majority of that trading. LoL has averaged $4.8 million in daily volume over the past month, while CS2 averages $4 million. In June, CS2 was the leading vertical, accounting for 65% of all volume. 

VALORANT is also seeing a rise. Back in June, it averaged less than $1 million per day, but now easily surpasses $2 million on a daily basis. 

At Polymarket, the story is similar, although trading on Dota 2 is higher than VALORANT. Outside of those four games, there was relatively little trading. The figures below are for 365 days, ending July 30th, 2026.

In total, users traded over $1.2 billion in esports on Polymarket over the past year, a little higher than the $1 billion on Kalshi. 

Those trading volumes do not include users placing parlays, which have become increasingly popular at Kalshi. 

Parlays now exceed individual sports market trading on the platform, with $14.4 billion in volume over the past month. Individual markets saw $13.5 billion in trading. 

It is important to note that parlays will always show inflated volume figures due to their longer odds. For example, is a user places a single bet of $2 that could return $4 then that would show as $4 in volume. If the user combines selections to place their $2 on a parlay that has potential returns of $40 then that will show as $40 in volume, despite the same $2 being risked. 

In most cases, the user will lose their $2 and only that amount of money will change hands. Parlays are significantly less likely to generate winnings for the bettor. On average, sportsbooks hold (the amount of money the betting company keeps) was 5.7% for single wagers over the past 12 months. For parlays, it was 18.8%. 

With their tendency to drive revenue, it is no surprise that Polymarket is getting into the parlay game. It started offering what it calls “Combinatoric Athletic Outcome Contracts” on its US beta platform this month. With a high volume of matches on a daily basis, users will likely start combining their esports wagers into parlays. 

On the other side of the parlay, wagers are market makers that respond to a user’s Request For Quote (RFQ). Market makers provide liquidity, often in exchange for paying relatively little in fees. Kalshi, however, announced that it will start charging commission on parlays from this week, in a filing with the CFTC. 

In other prediction market news, there was inevitably more legal backlash against Kalshi and Polymarket this week. South Korea and Denmark announced bans on Polymarket, taking the total of restricted countries to over 40.

Meanwhile, Washington state has started blocking Kalshi, becoming the third state to enforce a ban after Nevada and Michigan.