Parlays outpace Kalshi’s election trading nearly 23 to 1

Rival Polymarket saw a similar split, with sports & parlays making up 88% of its US trading over the same 10 days.

The hit

Kalshi’s midterm election contracts drew $1.1 billion in trading over the 10 days surrounding the vote, according to Legal Sports Report’s analysis of TickerTracker data. That’s just 3% of the platform’s volume, with sports parlays alone hitting $25.3 billion over the same stretch — nearly $23 for every election dollar traded.

Why it matters

Kalshi has pitched election markets as a rival to polling, but the numbers show politics is a sideshow next to sports on its platform. Even on Election Day, when election trading captured 17.5% of daily volume, parlays still outdrew it more than three to one. The same pattern held at Polymarket, where sports & parlays took 88% of US volume over the same period. Trading volume measures contracts exchanged, not revenue or stakes, & can exceed what customers actually put down, according to Legal Sports Report.

The record

Texas Senate race trading	$145m over 10 days (Legal Sports Report/TickerTracker)
Kalshi non-parlay sports contracts	$6.1bn over 10 days, vs $1.1bn for elections
Kalshi October volume	$98.2bn record month; elections were 0.5% of it
Polymarket politics trading	$72.8m over 10 days, 1.3% of total volume
Polymarket NFL moneyline trading	$220m over same 10 days, roughly 3x politics

What happens next

Watch whether Kalshi keeps expanding election combos given sports’ dominance, & whether a Bloomberg finding that election trading was flat versus 2024 draws further scrutiny of Kalshi’s growth claims.

Sources: Kalshi Sports Parlays Dwarf Election Trading During Midterms – Legal Sports Report

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