S&P Global survey: 70% of active prediction market users trade sports contracts

Sports event contracts remain the most widely traded category among prediction market users, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence's Kagan Q3 2026 Consumer Insights survey, which Casino.org reported. Of active users, 70% traded sports contracts.

The figures give operators and suppliers a look at who is trading and on what, at a time when prediction market companies are trying to broaden their product range beyond sport.

What happened

According to the survey, 10% of all respondents had made trades on yes/no exchanges during the previous twelve months. Within that group of active users, 70% had traded sports-related outcomes.

S&P Global's breakdown of the other categories among active users:

• Economic or financial outcomes: 36%.
• Political outcomes: 33%.
• News and entertainment outcomes: 26%.
• Other categories, including mentions of specific words, weather and cryptocurrency: 11%.

Just 2% of respondents confined their trading entirely to contracts outside sport during the period. Separately, 21% of all respondents had either placed a conventional sports bet or traded sports derivatives over the same twelve months.

Awareness. S&P Global said 42% of respondents were aware of operators in the prediction market sector without having used them, and it linked this at least in part to advertising during live sporting events. The largest group, 44%, said they had never heard of prediction markets. U.S. traders were most familiar with a core group of platforms led by DraftKings and Polymarket.

Who is trading. According to the survey, 61% of prediction market traders are under 35, while 13% are aged 55 or over. S&P Global reported that two-thirds (66%) of traders were men.

Crypto overlap. The survey data showed a correlation with crypto: 55% of prediction market traders said they had bought or sold cryptocurrency in the past year.

Why it matters

Affiliates and media buyers who work with sportsbook audiences should check how much their target segment overlaps with prediction market traders. The survey describes a user base that skews young and male and that is now being reached through advertising during live sport. Prediction market brands are therefore likely to be competing for the same audiences and ad inventory around live events.

The 44% who had never heard of prediction markets and the 42% who knew of them but had not used them suggest the category has not yet reached many respondents. How operators and publishers weigh that against their own acquisition plans will depend on their own data, but it could affect media costs around sports fixtures.

For sportsbook operators, the finding that 21% of all respondents had either made a conventional sports bet or traded sports derivatives could suggest both products draw on the same pool of sports interest. Product and retention teams could use this when assessing how closely prediction market offerings compete with their own.

Payments teams and crypto-focused suppliers may find the 55% crypto overlap relevant. It could indicate that wallet and on-ramp preferences among prediction market traders differ from those of a conventional sportsbook customer.

Operators running prediction market products, or marketing alongside them, should check how age and audience-targeting controls in their advertising would look to regulators and critics, given that 61% of traders are under 35.

The data comes from a single consumer survey reported by Casino.org.

The full write-up is available from Casino.org.