Prediction markets are gaining momentum fast, but the bigger story is what they reveal about shifting user expectations.
In this piece, first published on LinkedIn, Mark O’Hare, VP Sales, Americas, looks at why platforms built around clarity, ownership and community are shaping the next wave of betting engagement. It also explores what operators can take from this shift when planning their product roadmap.
FanDuel and DraftKings Are Betting on Prediction Platforms
The biggest recent development in U.S. betting hasn’t come from a regulator, a rights-holder, a major sportsbook merger, or, thankfully, the White House. Instead, it came from FanDuel and DraftKings, who simultaneously announced their departure from the American Gaming Association (AGA), and their withdrawal from Nevada.
Their intention is to accelerate efforts in building prediction platforms regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and thus to operate in all 50 states.
It’s a strategy that would have been unthinkable even a few months ago for such ingrained industry incumbents, and a seismic move for the two leading North American operators, who appear to have worked their way out of the gaming establishment even more quickly than they became part of it. (To use a rock n’ roll analogy, it’s the gaming equivalent of the Rolling Stones handing back their knighthoods, Super Bowl shows, and lucrative partnerships to get back to their counter-cultural, anti-establishment pre-record deal licentiousness in Soho nightclubs.)
For FanDuel and DraftKings to step away from the industry’s largest lobbying body and its historical market heartland signals a major strategic pivot. This isn’t a casual experiment with new product lines. It’s a re-evaluation of what the next decade of sports betting and fan engagement will look like, in the United States and beyond.
Prediction Markets Have Moved From Niche to Mainstream
As recently as last year, when sweepstakes appeared to be the biggest challenger to the sports betting hegemony, prediction markets were seen as a grey-market novelty. They were fringe forecasting tools for political obsessives and another new frontier for crypto bros. Now, they have formed a multi-billion-dollar parallel betting economy, with such name recognition that they have been namechecked on South Park and during NFL broadcasts. Their growth has been rapid and impossible for mainstream operators to ignore.
CFTC-Regulated Prediction Platforms Gaining Momentum
Kalshi, the only fully CFTC-regulated real-money prediction exchange in the States, has raised more than $100 million in venture funding and regularly sees seven-figure daily trading volume around major news cycles.
Polymarket, the largest blockchain-based prediction platform, has grown even faster, clearing more than $6 billion in cumulative volume since its 2020 launch, and often surpassing $50 million in trading volume on a single day during major events.
When combined with offshore exchanges and other blockchain-native platforms, total global prediction market activity surpassed an estimated $3 billion in 2025.
It’s clear why FanDuel and DraftKings are making their respective bets. This is a fast-scaling betting ecosystem that is shaping what younger, digital-native audiences expect from platforms.
Why Prediction Markets Work: Ownership, Agency and Clarity
The surge in prediction market popularity isn’t just about new contract types or regulatory novelty. It’s rooted in psychology and experience design. These platforms succeed because they give users a level of agency, participation, and ownership that traditional sportsbooks typically can lack.
When users “trade contracts” in a binary yes-or-no outcome, they feel like investors shaping a market, rather than customers consuming a product. Prices move because the crowd moves, creating a sense of transparency and collective influence.
A Simpler UX Than Traditional Sportsbooks
Just as importantly, prediction markets simplify everything by design. Users interact with a single, universal mechanic: the price of a yes or no outcome, which they can track on a stock market-style ticker. This frictionless design aligns naturally with the habits of the Robinhood and Coinbase generation, who gravitate toward clean interfaces and intuitive financial metaphors. The barrier to entry for novices is arguably lower than those who first download a sportsbook app.
Prediction markets also thrive on community. They are discussed in Discord servers, TikTok explainers, X threads, Twitch streams, and group chats that use language that those over 40 may struggle to decipher. Users don’t just place trades and sit back — they openly discuss and share them in a way that they might not with sports bets (or your dreary fantasy team picks).
What Operators Can Learn From Prediction Markets
Prediction markets shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as an existential threat to sportsbooks. They should be understood as a roadmap for where digital betting engagement is heading.
Customers increasingly want products that feel participatory, rather than transactional. Users today expect transparency, not opacity. They’re looking for interfaces that respond to their behaviour, rather than pushing them into pre-set funnels. Most importantly, they prefer social experiences that turn betting into something shared, not solitary.
Traditional operators can take several lessons from this shift. They can create environments where players feel greater ownership over the experience, whether through community-driven sentiment tracking, fan-influenced boosts, collaborative challenges, or live social features.
They can adopt the clarity and simplicity of prediction markets by reducing friction in navigation, and designing markets that feel intuitive, rather than intimidating. And they can foster new forms of community by building features that encourage conversation, competition, and collective involvement around major events.
Building Better Products to Meet the Moment
Prediction markets tend to thrive for three reasons: clear UX, real-time data feedback loops, and community participation. The most impactful betting products over the next decade will be the ones that embrace this trinity, making users feel connected, informed, and involved.
For most operators, trying to develop participatory, data-rich, UX-first products internally is difficult. Product teams are often stretched thin maintaining legacy systems; engineering resources are consumed by regulatory demands, integrations, and day-to-day operations; and innovation cycles can travel at a snail’s pace.
Outsourcing Product Development Helps Teams Move Faster
This is why outsourcing development to a product specialist like The Unit becomes a strategic advantage, rather than simply a resourcing decision. A dedicated partner can move faster, iterate more aggressively, and dedicate full focus to innovation without the structural constraints of an in-house team. The Unit brings cross-industry experience and a deep understanding of how betting, fintech, and prediction-style mechanics can coexist in a single product environment.
Prediction Markets Show Where Betting Is Heading Next
Prediction markets have shown how powerful it is when users have ownership, clarity, and community. Their rapid growth proves that modern bettors want more than transactions. Operators who embrace these principles, and who design experiences around participation instead of passive consumption, will shape the next era of sports betting.
