Prediction Markets Becoming “Too Big for Crackdowns”?

According to industry investors in a recent panel discussion, prediction markets might grow quickly enough to attain "exit velocity" and become a recognized component of the legal gaming ecosystem.

Quinton Singleton, Chief Operating Officer of nVenue, and Davis Catlin, a Discerning Capital Managing Partner, appeared on a panel at the Next.io conference in New York, titled "Pardon the D."

Prediction markets and the possibility of financial opportunities in the field were the main topics of debate. It happened a few days after it was reported that Polymarket and Kalshi were both looking to raise $20 billion. Both businesses would thus be worth more than Flutter Entertainment, which controls FanDuel and several other significant betting brands worldwide.

According to Catlin, the emergence of pick 'em-style daily fantasy demonstrated that products that have been the focus of regulatory discussions can become mainstream if they get sufficient traction.

One of the things he learned from that, he claimed, was that you might be able to attain an escape velocity if you innovate and scale quickly enough, as Kalshi is attempting to do. Furthermore, this phenomena is not exclusive to the United States. Take a look at Dream11 in India. Take a look at Japanese pachinko. People have innovated in a variety of methods to get past these regulations.

In the last year, Kalshi in particular has experienced remarkable growth. In February, it handled over $10 billion in trading volume. With the NCAA men's basketball tournament expected to increase volume in the second part of the month, the figures are probably going to be considerably higher in March. for March 12, 2026, the trade volume in the prediction market was 100 times greater than it was for the same day in 2025.

There are still questions about whether prediction markets should be so dependent on sports, Catlin continued. On certain NFL Sundays last year, Kalshi's volume reached up to 95% sports.

“I do think that prediction markets have a place. I think that it is a good regulatory framework,” he said. “I think the question is around whether or not it should be 97% sports betting. In my mind, the way I look at what we’re seeing now is another point of evolution,” he said. “We went from the long, season-long fantasy to DFS. Is DFS gambling? Well, we’ve changed the law on DFS and gambling. So DFS is DFS.”

Similar remarks were made by Singleton regarding how the initial wave of daily fantasy sports was perceived as a separate product from gambling.

Winners and losers

According to Catlin, publicly traded sports betting firms like DraftKings and Flutter have lost over half of their value since late August, making them the biggest "losers" from the emergence of prediction markets thus far. Even if prediction markets continue to gain popularity, he stated that it was still unclear if Kalshi would emerge victorious in the long run.

Catlin noted that the public stocks are clearly the losers. Even though the company is doing well, if an employee works for a publicly traded gaming company, their share price has probably decreased over the past seven months. Therefore, the biggest loser is how the public views gambling.

According to Singleton, some financial firms investigating prediction markets may be challenging to compete with due to their abundance of resources.

Singleton said, “Look who’s playing in this space. It’s not the small players. I think the fintech industry and even DeFi, the size of these players are so big that even the numbers we’re seeing as valuations or money raised, may not be enough to have you win in the long term. I think we see some other major interesting groups, like Robinhood and others, where they already have a massive existing user base, and they’re gonna add another product that looks exactly like the product they have now.”

Source:

"Prediction Markets Could Reach ‘Exit Velocity’ And Get Too Big For Crackdowns, Investors Say" , Daniel O’Boyle, ingame.com, March 13, 2026.