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This is our roundup newsletter. A weekly curated list of the biggest things happening in prediction markets.
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🖋️ This roundup was written and edited by Pet Berisha and Omar El Safy
Underdog have opened their own exchange. On 18 July the sports operator switched on prediction markets running on their own CFTC-licensed venue, inside the existing app.
Underdog bought Aristotle's exchange and clearing licences in March 2026, self-certified their first seven sports contracts with the CFTC on 15 July, and went live three days later. Until now, they had offered prediction markets through a Crypto.com partnership running since September 2025, which they say has put through $6.5 billion in notional volume, third among US operators.
The exchange is dark in 13 US jurisdictions, including Nevada and Washington, DC. Everywhere else, a fantasy sports app now clears its own federally regulated derivatives. "Prediction markets are largely about sports, and Underdog is the best at sports," says CEO Jeremy Levine.
Kalshi have built a price curve for computing power. On 14 July they launched forward curves for the rental price of Nvidia's B200, H200 and A100 chips, reference benchmarks built from their own CFTC-regulated chip markets. Bernstein put Kalshi's B200 forward at $5.41, against a historical peak of $7.39.
A forward curve is the market's price for a thing at future dates. Energy, interest rates, metals all have these. Compute does not. It trades in private deals between clouds and labs, the way oil traded before NYMEX. Kalshi want to be the exchange that changes that, so a data centre can hedge chips it has not even bought yet. "Compute is the new oil," says CEO Tarek Mansour. "Like every commodity before it, it needs a real derivatives market."
The market is enormous. Hyperscalers are spending around $700 billion on compute this year, and McKinsey project a $7 trillion data-centre build-out by 2030. Oil futures trade over 800 million contracts a year, and Kalshi expect compute to eventually dwarf that. CME and ICE both have compute futures waiting on CFTC review for late 2026, but Kalshi’s self-certification ensured they got here first. We wrote about why the curves matter in Wednesday's edition.
Gabriel Perez has operated Donald Trump's teleprompter for a decade. He is now on unpaid leave, accused of betting on the president's words.
Kalshi run 'Mentions' markets, contracts on whether the president will say a given word or phrase in a speech. Regulators say Perez made over $90,000 across more than a dozen speeches, including the State of the Union, before Kalshi's own surveillance flagged the accounts, froze the profits, and found a federal employee behind them. The CFTC are in settlement talks with him. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump "believes it's deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace".
Ironically, Perez actually lost bets, because President Trump goes off script so much. You don’t know whether to laugh, cry or be amazed when it comes to prediction markets.
🗞 General
Prediction markets swelled to 27% of US sports bets during the World Cup (Read more here)
Kalshi added 3 million new users during the World Cup (Read more here)
Jump Trading double their team to ride the record prediction market boom (Read more here)
Semafor: Kalshi bet on Wall Street (Read more here)
NYT: the 'bad blood' between Polymarket's Shayne Coplan and Kalshi's Tarek Mansour (Read more here)
Traders took $8.2 million from Polymarket's five-minute bitcoin markets as researchers find manipulation evidence (Read more here)
CNBC: the IRS still has no guidance on how prediction markets are taxed (Read more here)
WIRED: Polymarket's corporate structure is a mystery, even to insiders (Read more here)
Gaming bonds lose their allure as the prediction-market threat grows (Read more here)
🤝 Announcements & Partnerships
Kalshi launch 'Kalshi Pro', a professional trading terminal with perpetual futures (Read more here)
DAZN sign an exclusive global deal with ADI Predictstreet to put prediction markets inside the broadcast (Read more here)
Kalshi come for biopharma, with markets on clinical-trial results and FDA approvals (Read more here)
Kalshi file to offer contracts on flight cancellations (Read more here)
ADI Predictstreet partner with FIRST.bet to expand across Latin America (Read more here)
UFC partner with Polymarket and Meta on a veterans initiative (Read more here)
Hyperliquid plan permissionless prediction market deployment with HIP-4 (Read more here)
Augur return with a decentralised layer for disputed markets (Read more here)
💰 Funding & M&A
Pascal raise a $9M Series A led by Union Square Ventures to build the pro tier (Read more here)
Coinsilium back Predictive Labs' Nijinn, a prediction-market intelligence tool (Read more here)
⚖️ Regulation & Legal
France orders internet providers to block Polymarket (Read more here)
The Czech Republic moves to block Polymarket too (Read more here)
Ireland's gambling regulator threatens a prediction market with High Court action (Read more here)
Gibraltar unveils dedicated prediction-market regulation (Read more here)
The CFTC orders Kalshi to honour the voided Michigan trades, escalating the state fight (Read more here)
Ninth Circuit judges question Kalshi's markets on tribal land (Read more here)
Google expand their prediction-market ad ban to Michigan and New York (Read more here)
Gottheimer introduces a facial-ID age-verification bill covering prediction markets (Read more here)
A one-man CFTC speeds up rulemaking on prediction markets (Read more here)
Disclaimers
This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not financial, business or legal advice. These are the author's thoughts & opinions and do not represent the opinions of any other person, business, entity or sponsor. Any companies, platforms, markets or projects mentioned are for illustrative purposes unless specified.
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When you trade on prediction markets (including event contracts, opinion markets and other speculative instruments) your capital is at risk. Risks include price volatility, loss of capital, illiquidity, complexity, evolving regulation and lack of protection. Many prediction market operators do not currently operate in a fully regulated industry, and availability varies by jurisdiction. You may not be protected under financial compensation schemes typically afforded to investors dealing with regulated entities. Nothing in this newsletter constitutes a recommendation to place, hold, or close any position on any market.
