Prediction markets crossed another milestone in June, surpassing $50 billion in monthly trading volume for the first time.
The same week, European regulators initiated a new coordinated response to the sector, DraftKings completed the launch of its own exchange, and Cboe proposed bringing prediction-style contracts into the U.S. securities market.
Europe Starts Closing Ranks on Prediction Markets
European regulators are taking a closer look at the prediction markets.
Gambling regulators from nine countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium, issued a joint warning ahead of the World Cup, promising closer cooperation and enforcement against platforms that operate without local authorisation.
They also urged sports leagues and clubs to verify the legal status of prediction market operators before signing commercial partnerships.
At the same time, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) reminded firms that many event contracts may already fall under the EU’s long-standing restrictions on binary options.
The regulator said that simply calling a product an “event contract” does not change how it should be classified under MiFID II.
Taken together, the statements suggest Europe is moving toward a more coordinated regulatory approach.
Gambling regulators are focusing on licensing and consumer protection, while securities regulators are examining whether some prediction market products already fit within existing financial rules.
DraftKings Bets on Its Own Exchange
DraftKings has completed the launch of DKeX, its in-house prediction market exchange built around the Railbird platform it acquired last year.
The company spent eight months developing the venue before moving its event contracts off third-party infrastructure.
By operating its own exchange, DraftKings can keep trading, matching, and clearing within the same ecosystem rather than relying on external providers.
The move follows similar decisions by Robinhood and Coinbase, both of which have also brought key pieces of exchange infrastructure in-house as their prediction market businesses expanded.
Owning exchange infrastructure turns into a competitive advantage in prediction markets, allowing firms to capture more of the economics behind every trade instead of sharing them with third-party venues.
Cboe Wants to Turn Company Metrics Into Tradable Events
Cboe is seeking SEC approval to list binary options tied to corporate performance metrics, expanding prediction-style trading beyond macroeconomic data and market indexes.
The proposal covers more than 100 metrics across 23 companies, including Nvidia data centre revenue, Apple iPhone shipments, and SpaceX revenue.
Rather than trading how a stock reacts to earnings, investors would trade whether a specific business metric reaches a predefined threshold.
Unlike prediction markets operated by Kalshi under CFTC rules, Cboe’s contracts would be listed as securities options, cleared by the Options Clearing Corporation, and distributed through the existing brokerage ecosystem.
The proposal suggests that prediction-style products are moving beyond event contracts into traditional capital markets, where company fundamentals themselves could become tradable binary outcomes.
Number of the Week
Prediction markets surpassed $50 billion in monthly trading volumefor the first time in June, according to Artemis data.
Volume rose 75% from May, helped by World Cup-driven activity. Kalshi remained the largest venue with roughly $33 billion in monthly volume, followed by Polymarket at $14 billion and Rothera at about $2 billion.
Meanwhile, around 70% of all closed Polymarket markets have generated less than $10,000 in trading volume, according to CNBC’s analysis of the platform’s Gamma API.
Most prediction market contracts have low volume, leaving users exposed to volatility and bots https://t.co/eoLTAsNwQs
— CNBC (@CNBC) July 2, 2026
The finding illustrates an important characteristic of prediction markets: record platform-wide volume is concentrated in a relatively small number of high-profile events, while most individual markets remain thinly traded.
Bottom Line
June’s record trading volume was driven in large part by the World Cup. The next test is whether prediction markets can sustain that level of activity once the tournament ends.
The other question is which framework absorbs the product.
Cboe is asking the SEC to approve prediction-style contracts as securities options, ESMA says many event contracts already fall under MiFID II, and gambling regulators are asserting licensing authority ahead of the World Cup. The SEC’s response to Cboe’s filing will be the first concrete signal.
This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com.
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