Prediction market players: The new audience operators aren't ready for

In this article, Turbo Stars explores how the rapid rise of prediction markets is introducing a fundamentally different type of player to the iGaming ecosystem, forcing operators to rethink acquisition strategies, engagement models, and product design.

Prediction markets spent years on the fringe — niche platforms, crypto-native communities, regulatory grey zones. The mainstream iGaming industry mostly watched from a distance.

Then the numbers stopped being ignorable. Kalshi processed $43 billion in trades in 2025. Monthly volumes grew from under $100 million at the start of 2024 to over $20 billion by early 2026. On Super Bowl Sunday 2026 alone, $871 million moved through a single platform in one day. Gibraltar issued its first prediction market operator license. B2B infrastructure started appearing.

The vertical isn't emerging anymore. It's arrived — and with it, a player type that existing acquisition funnels, retention mechanics, and platform assumptions simply weren't designed for.

Turbo Stars works with operators across multiple markets — and prediction markets keep coming up as the same conversation: a new vertical, a new product, and very little clarity on who's actually on the other side of it. Here's what the data reveals about that player.

A different kind of player

This player doesn't map onto the standard iGaming profile.

They're competitive, status-conscious, and information-hungry — and they show higher consumer confidence than the general population. They read the news the way a sports bettor reads the lineup. The world around them is the content. The platform is just where they act on it.

The core demographic is 25–34, skewing male, with above-average income and education — 26% hold graduate degrees, and 30% earn between $100k and $150k annually. Not a casual bettor looking for entertainment. Someone who tracks markets, follows geopolitics, and has a view on what happens next.

Prediction markets reached them not by lowering the barrier, but by removing it entirely. No learning curve, no specialist knowledge required — just an opinion about something already happening in the world.

This audience doesn't arrive through traditional iGaming channels either. Prediction market traffic flows from news platforms, financial tools, and social media — not from sportsbook affiliate networks or casino review sites. The acquisition funnel looks nothing like what operators already have.

How they actually bet

The average prediction market bet sits at $185, compared to $55 on a sportsbook. Different product, different psychology, different stake size.

Betting frequency follows the same pattern. 21% of prediction market users trade daily, and another 29% several times a week. This isn't casual engagement — it's a routine built around news cycles, macro events, and real-time information.

However, the distribution is uneven. 2% of users account for approximately 90% of trading volume. A concentrated core of high-frequency, high-capital participants sits on top of a much larger base of occasional traders. For operators, this looks familiar: the same whale dynamic that drives casino and sportsbook economics applies here too — but the profile of that whale is entirely different. Not a high-roller chasing jackpots. Someone running a geopolitical thesis with $10,000+ behind it.

Cross-vertical engagement

Leading sportsbook operators have publicly stated that prediction markets are not materially cannibalizing their existing business. The numbers support that — only around 5% of legal sportsbook handle has shifted to prediction markets. On paper, minimal overlap.

But new user acquisition tells a different story. Between September 2025 and February 2026, the two largest sportsbook platforms saw new app installs drop 13–18% year-over-year. Over the same period, Kalshi alone added 6.3 million new users. Prediction markets aren't pulling existing sportsbook players away. Instead, they're reaching the next generation first — before they even start thinking about a sportsbook.

The data reinforces this separation further: users active on both platforms are lower-quality customers for sportsbooks and underperformers on prediction markets simultaneously. The crossover audience doesn't fully belong to either product. The prediction market player and the sportsbook player are, structurally, different people.

For operators, this is less a threat than a signal: a new type of player is entering the market through a different door — and the window to build for them is open now.

What this means for operators

Prediction markets don't slot neatly into an existing product roadmap. The player is different, the acquisition channel is different, and the engagement logic is different. A sportsbook retention mechanic built around odds boosts won't land with someone who just put $200 on a geopolitical outcome.

The opportunity is real — but it requires building with this player in mind from the start, with real observation and iteration. Understanding who they are, how they move, and what keeps them engaged isn't a secondary question. It's the foundation — and the key to an entirely new type of player relationship.

Turbo Stars sees operators asking this question more often as prediction markets move from experiment to roadmap item. Getting the product right starts with getting the player right.