Jefferies: prediction market volume jumps 55% to record in October

Jefferies analyst Daniel Fannon said daily turnover on yes/no prediction market exchanges surged 55% in October to an all-time high of $4.13 billion. Open interest rose 45% month-over-month to $3.27 billion, also a record, according to a report to clients cited by Casino.org. The source linked the October surge in average daily volume to the ramping of college football and the NFL.

Platform volumes

Fannon said Polymarket had $655M ADV, up 50% month-over-month and 395% year-over-year, with a 17% ADV market share of the platforms tracked, flat month-over-month. Other platforms tracked had $309M ADV, up 56% month-over-month and 710% year-over-year, with market share flat month-over-month at about 7%.

Rothera, which launched in June, had $49M in total ADV, up 55% month-over-month, representing 1.2% of industry ADV, versus 1.5% in September. Rothera is a joint venture between Robinhood Markets and Susquehanna International Group.

Sports and non-sports mix

Sports ADV was up 55% month-over-month in October, according to Fannon, while sports event contracts’ market share of 78% was flat compared with September. From a product mix standpoint, sports ADV grew 55% month-over-month to $2,978M, while non-sports ADV also grew 55% month-over-month to $843M in October. Sports ADV continued to have a dominant market share at 78% in October, flat month-over-month. On the open interest side, sports share of total OI grew to 83% in October from 73% in September.

Fannon highlighted that use of combos rises on the weekends, indicating traders are mostly using multi-leg wagers for sports purposes. Fannon said the weekend uplift is consistent with combos skewing toward NFL and college football activity, and that DraftKings’ DKeX’s higher combo penetration across both weekdays and weekends suggests a structurally more sports- and combo-heavy product mix.