Polymarket Just Got a $2 Billion Investment From the NYSE. But Its Future Is Far From Clear

It has been roughly three years since prediction site Polymarket has been available to U.S. users. Since July, though, the company has been taking steps to restore that access—and it just got one of its biggest votes of confidence.

The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, on Tuesday, announced an investment of up to $2 billion in Polymarket, which will value the prediction market at approximately $8 billion. The investment by Intercontinental Exchange Inc. makes 27-year-old founder Shayne Coplan the youngest self-made billionaire in history.

It comes less than three months after New York City-based Polymarket began publicly talking about its U.S. comeback, announcing it had acquired QCX, the holding company of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-licensed derivatives exchange, and QC Clearing, a clearinghouse, for $112 million. That, it said at the time, “paves the way for U.S. users to access Polymarket in the near future.”

Maybe not quite as near as it had hoped for, though. Despite all the positive momentum, Polymarket remains unavailable to U.S. users. A message on the site’s home page currently reads, “Polymarket will soon be available for US traders. We’re working hard to get the U.S. platform ready for launch.”

Polymarket ceased operations here as part of a settlement with the CFTC. That dispute emerged from Polymarket’s lack of a license. There were also concerns of market manipulation. In July, though, the Justice Department and CFTC ended their investigations (which were launched by the Biden administration). That led to the QCX deal, which opened the path to resume operations in the U.S.

Any delay in resuming those operations, however, only gives Polymarket’s competitors a chance to lock in users—and there are plenty of competitors.

With the Intercontinental investment, Polymarket’s valuation is now four times that of rival Kalshi, but when it comes to trading volume, the two are still largely on even footing. For the week to September 29, New York City-based Kalshi boasted a 67 percent share of the global prediction market. Polymarket had 31 percent. Up until late August, Polymarket had been far and away the category leader.

Polymarket has a global audience, while Kalshi tends to focus more on the U.S., which has a larger customer pool. Kalshi also scored a big victory last year when a federal court authorized it to offer presidential election contracts, something that had been illegal for a century in the U.S. (Some two million users bet more than $1 billion on the Trump versus Harris race alone. Polymarket racked up $3.6 billion in wagers outside of the U.S.)

There are plenty of other prediction markets in the mix as well. Robinhood launched one before the presidential election last year and has since partnered with Kalshi to add event contracts trading. And Crypto.com partnered with Underdog to start a sports prediction market last month.

“At the most fundamental level, [prediction markets] are the application of capitalism to the pursuit of truth,” wrote Robinhood founder Vlad Tenev on social media after the deal with Kalshi was struck. “Market incentives and the wisdom of the crowds sift through all the information out there to determine answers to well-specified questions and outcomes to important events.” 

Prediction markets operate in something of a grey area compared to professional sportsbook operations, and their legality is still being figured out by courts and the CFTC. As that drags on, though, prediction market sites have continued to grow and become habitual for users.

Wagering on events, from politics to sports to the number of posts Elon Musk will make on X in a given week, has become a multibillion-dollar business. A forecast from Metatech Insights predicts the decentralized prediction market alone will reach $95.5 billion by 2035. The majority of that growth is expected to take place in the U.S., which is why Polymarket has been so eager to return.

Beyond acquiring QCX, the company has taken other steps to ensure it doesn’t run into the same problems it did before it was banned. Donald Trump Jr. joined Polymarket’s advisory board in August, and his venture-capital firm 1789 Capital is now an investor in the company (as is Peter Thiel’s Founder’s Fund). Intercontinental Exchange, meanwhile, has its own ties to the Trump administration. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher is married to SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler.