Prediction Market Volume Could Reach $10 Trillion by 2035 as Sports Share Declines

Prediction markets could become dramatically larger over the next decade if a new Bernstein forecast proves accurate. Analysts led by Gautam Chhugani estimate that annual turnover on yes-or-no exchanges could climb to $10 trillion by 2035. The projection is striking because it implies a very different scale from the industry that exists today. Bernstein expects roughly $410 billion in prediction-market turnover in 2026, so the 2035 estimate would represent more than a twentyfold increase from that base. The analysts describe a growth path that would require exceptionally rapid expansion across the period, with annual volume compounding at around 70%.

A much larger prediction-market forecast

The headline number is also much larger than the forecasts that were attracting attention only months earlier. In April, Bernstein had projected that prediction-market turnover could reach $1 trillion by 2030. Bank of America had put a longer-term annual figure at $1.1 trillion, while Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon published a $1.5 trillion estimate for 2030 in July. The new $10 trillion figure therefore does not merely extend the same story a little further. It suggests a market that could continue scaling after 2030 rather than flattening around the first trillion-dollar milestone.

That distinction matters because turnover and revenue are not the same thing. Prediction markets can process enormous trading volume while operators retain only a small percentage as revenue. Even so, Bernstein has previously estimated that $1 trillion of annual activity could support as much as $10.8 billion in operator revenue. If the market eventually became several times larger, the revenue opportunity could also become materially larger, although the precise relationship would depend on pricing, fees, competition and the mix of products available at the time.

Sports may become a smaller part of a much bigger market

Sports contracts currently provide much of the visible activity around prediction markets. They are familiar to users, easy to understand and naturally suited to binary outcomes. Bernstein does not expect that position to disappear, but it does expect sports to become less dominant as the overall market broadens. The research firm forecasts that sports-related derivatives will account for about 35% of prediction-market turnover in 2035.

A smaller share does not necessarily mean lower sports volume. If total turnover rises toward $10 trillion, a 35% sports share would still sit inside a far larger absolute market than today’s industry. The more important implication is that growth is expected to come faster in other categories. Bernstein sees financial event contracts becoming the largest contributor, rather than sports continuing to carry most of the expansion by itself.

This is an important change in how the category is framed. Prediction markets are often discussed through the lens of election contracts or sports events because those products attract public attention. Bernstein’s forecast instead points toward an exchange ecosystem in which users may increasingly trade outcomes tied to business, commodities, cryptocurrencies and other financial variables. In that model, sports remain important, but the industry becomes less dependent on them.

Key prediction-market forecasts

Financial event contracts could become the main volume driver

Bernstein estimates that financial derivatives could account for 49% of prediction-market turnover by 2035. That bucket includes event contracts linked to commodities, cryptocurrencies and individual stocks, as well as newer structures tied to specific corporate metrics. The analysts expect so-called KPI markets to be one of the more significant areas of development.

A KPI market would allow traders to take a position on a single operating metric rather than on the share price of a company. Examples in the research include measures such as production, deliveries or subscriber growth. A contract could therefore be built around a quarterly number, such as the number of iPhones shipped or the number of vehicles delivered, rather than around whether a company’s stock rises or falls. That gives prediction markets a different use case from simply mirroring conventional securities trading.

The same research also notes the expansion of perpetual futures beyond cryptocurrencies. Perpetual contracts have historically been closely associated with crypto markets, but Bernstein sees versions tied to commodities and individual stocks becoming part of the broader product landscape. Prediction-market operators have already filed plans around some KPI-linked structures, suggesting that the move beyond sports is not only theoretical.

Crypto has already shown that non-sports demand exists

There are signs that diversification is already happening. Bernstein notes that cryptocurrency-related event contracts account for at least 20% of turnover on the two largest prediction markets. That is meaningful because it shows that users are willing to trade event outcomes that have little to do with traditional sports or political questions. Crypto also provides a natural bridge between fast-moving financial markets and binary event structures.

Commodities have produced an even more dramatic percentage increase from a much smaller base. One major operator recorded only about $2 million in commodities volume last year. By August 2026, monthly volume had surpassed $410 million, while year-to-date activity was approaching $600 million. The absolute numbers are still far below the total volumes attached to the largest prediction-market categories, but the growth pattern supports Bernstein’s argument that additional product types can gain traction quickly once they are offered in a useful format.

That does not guarantee that every new contract type will become large. Some markets will be too narrow, too difficult to settle or too dependent on reliable data sources. What the current figures do show is that prediction-market demand is not confined to a single category. Users are already responding to contracts built around crypto and commodities, which makes the possibility of a broader financial-event marketplace more plausible than it would have looked a few years ago.

The wider financial market is what makes the forecast mathematically possible

Bernstein’s long-term argument also depends on the size of the global financial-contract market. The firm estimates that the global market for financial contracts could reach roughly $900 trillion by 2035, compared with about $700 trillion last year. Prediction markets would not need to capture a large share of that total to create trillions of dollars in additional turnover.

The analysts calculate that taking only 0.5% of that projected financial-contract market could add around $4.7 trillion of yearly volume to prediction markets. That arithmetic helps explain how the 2035 forecast can move so far beyond the $1 trillion estimates being discussed for 2030. The model is not based only on more people trading the same sports contracts. It assumes prediction markets begin participating, even at a very small share, in financial activity that is already enormous.

Of course, a theoretical addressable market is not the same thing as realised demand. Capturing a fraction of conventional financial activity would require suitable products, legal permission, reliable settlement data, sufficient liquidity and enough users to make those markets function well. The forecast is therefore best understood as a scenario built on market expansion, not as a statement that the volume will inevitably arrive.

Liquidity and product breadth will matter as much as headline growth

For a prediction market, adding categories is only useful if individual contracts can attract enough participation. A long catalogue of thinly traded markets may look impressive but still provide a poor user experience. The strongest contracts tend to be those where there is enough activity for participants to enter and exit positions without excessive friction. That means the move into financial derivatives will depend not only on regulatory access but also on whether operators can concentrate liquidity around products that users actually want to trade.

KPI markets illustrate both the opportunity and the challenge. A contract tied to a widely followed metric can be intuitive because the outcome is based on a published number. But it also requires clear settlement rules: which data source counts, how revisions are treated and what happens if a company changes its reporting definitions. As prediction markets become more financially oriented, those details become increasingly important because the contracts begin to resemble specialised trading instruments rather than simple entertainment products.

This is also why the composition of the market may change gradually even if overall turnover grows quickly. Sports can continue providing straightforward, high-frequency events while newer financial categories build their own user base. The 35% sports share in Bernstein’s 2035 forecast should therefore be read as part of a broader diversification thesis, not as a prediction that sports suddenly stop mattering.

What would have to happen for the $10 trillion figure to become realistic

Several things would need to go right for turnover to approach the level Bernstein describes. Operators would have to keep expanding the range of legal products, users would need to adopt non-sports categories at scale, and markets would need enough depth to support repeat trading. The industry would also need reliable infrastructure for pricing, settlement and risk management across a much larger number of events.

The forecast also assumes that prediction markets can keep finding use cases beyond the categories that first made them popular. A user who trades a sports outcome once a week is different from a participant who regularly trades contracts tied to economic or company data. Financial-event products could create a more frequent trading rhythm, which is one reason they matter so much to the long-term model. But the research does not establish that every potential user will adopt them, and the eventual mix will depend on how these products actually perform.

For now, the clearest takeaway is the direction of Bernstein’s thesis. The firm expects prediction markets to become much larger, much more financially oriented and less dependent on sports than they are today. The $10 trillion figure is a forecast, not a current market size, but it captures how quickly expectations around the sector have changed. A category that was recently being discussed in terms of reaching $1 trillion by 2030 is now being modelled as a multi-trillion-dollar exchange ecosystem only five years later.