The prediction market finishes the year strong

In terms of full-year performance, Kalshi's $263.5 million in fee income in 2025—the great majority of which came from sports—was comparable to the third tier of United States sports betting operators thanks to a late-year surge.

However, the startup platform's rise during the course of the year indicates that its fee income in 2026 may be even larger.

Kalshi's primary source of income is contract purchase fees. The platform charges different costs for events that are close to 50/50 and lower fees for longshots or extreme favorites, based on the contract's odds. In contrast to flat fees, this approach guarantees that there is never a price at which a wager would be a sure loser or where the fees paid would be greater than the stake.

When Kalshi's charge formula is applied to its 2025 data, the company's revenue increased dramatically during the year, primarily because of the NFL season.

The fees were calculated using a volume of $22.88 billion, which is little less than 1.2% of the entire volume.

"Taker" fees are what are being measured here. Additionally, Kalshi charges "maker" costs for resting orders that are accepted; however, they are limited to certain markets and are frequently eliminated by incentive programs for smaller market makers or fee refunds for larger ones.

Less than $30 million of that $263.5 million came from non-sports markets, including elections and Federal Reserve decisions, while the great majority, $234.6 million, came from sports.

This indicates that sports accounted for 89% of Kalshi's fee income, with the sports portion exceeding 90% during the last four months of the year. As the year progressed, non-sports markets did expand, but not nearly as rapidly as sports markets. Because more sports events are nearly 50/50, fees as a percentage of revenue also tend to be higher in these markets.

Although the state-regulated sports betting sector in the United States has not yet finished reporting, it looks like operator income will total about $16 billion this year. This would indicate that Kalshi has about 1.5% of the overall U.S. sports betting market in 2025.

However, Kalshi's market share was significantly higher in the last few months of the year, during NFL season, despite being a new entry with limited brand awareness at the beginning of the year.

Kalshi made $138.0 million from sports fees between September and November. With a nearly 3% market share, Kalshi would rank seventh among U.S. sports betting companies, ahead of Rush Street Interactive and theScore Bet but behind FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Fanatics, Caesars, and Bet365.

With $63.5 million in revenue in December alone, Kalshi's performance was even greater. It is too early to compare that number to state-regulated sportsbooks because there is essentially no state-level statistics, but the prediction market might have risen even higher in the rankings.

With the NFL and college football schedules helping to ensure high levels of sports activity on weekdays, which are often slower owing to the lack of significant athletic events, the final week of the year was Kalshi's strongest, approaching the $2 billion barrier for volume.

One of Kalshi's most anticipated events of the year was the introduction of parlays, which led to sharp declines in the stock values of DraftKings and Flutter Entertainment. The $947.8 million parlay volume may be deceptive because most Kalshi customers can only wager on the "Yes" side of a parlay, while the volume data takes into account both sides. Institutional market makers account for the great bulk of the data's volume because most parlays are at longer odds.

Kalshi parlay fees totaled only $3.7 million, a negligible portion of the volume generated by parlays at a big sportsbook. Bets account for more than half of sportsbook revenue in states that disclose parlay revenue. They made up about 2% at Kalshi during the last three months of the year.

Other revenue streams for Kalshi, such as earnings from its internal market-making division, Kalshi Trading, are not included in the fee revenue calculations.

Luana Lopes Lara, a co-founder of Kalshi, stated on social media that Kalshi Trading is "not profitable." She did not, however, specify if this is a reference to its actual trading performance or if it also accounts for costs like employee pay. Kalshi has never released comprehensive information about Kalshi Trading's performance.

Industry watchers have spent the most of the year trying to determine whether or if prediction markets like Kalshi are collecting money from sportsbooks, and if so, how much.

Source:

“Kalshi Fee Revenue In 2025 Was $263.5 Million, With 89% Coming From Sports” , Daniel O'Boyle, ingame.com, January 9, 2026.