Is it a prediction market or a sportsbook?
The data does not say. The slogan does.
Eilers & Krejcik publish that 69% of US sports event contract volume originates in the 19 states where online sports betting is illegal. 43% comes from California and Texas alone.
Two questions before anyone uses this number to argue anything.
What are they counting. A "sports event contract" on Kalshi and a parlay on DraftKings are not the same product. But they sit close enough in consumer behaviour that the line between them is blurring on purpose. If the report keeps them in one bucket, the headline is doing more work than the data.
How they measured the volume. State-level breakdowns of prediction market handle do not fall out of the platforms by default. Platforms do not publish the methodology that produces those numbers. Without methodology, the conclusion is whatever the author wants it to be.
And then the part that bothers me. Anti-betting voices read the same dataset as proof that Americans do not want sports betting. Read it again. Most of the volume comes from people whose state has banned the product. That is not a market saying no. That is a market saying yes through whichever door is open.
The slogan works only if no one reads past the first chart.