The prediction market audience: Global review

Prediction markets are gaining popularity rapidly, leaving classic sports betting behind. Enthusiasm for predicting outcomes, timing, and probabilities continues to grow and shape global trends. The prediction markets’ main audience is tech-savvy, crypto-friendly, young, sharply opinionated, and intelligent people. The sources of prediction market promotion shift to opinion leaders, such as social media bloggers and celebrities.

The majority of prediction market users are young, tech-savvy, educated enthusiasts who often trade in crypto. Most of them have above-average incomes. DeFi communities are also interested in prediction market platforms. Political and news junkies, retail investors, pop-culture followers, drifting sportsbook bettors, trading firms representatives, and the general public — all can be spotted trading on events with binary contracts.

How prediction markets work

A prediction market is an online platform that offers its visitors outcome-based trading on future events. The players are not just placing a bet and waiting; they're purchasing a "share" in an outcome — and that share has a cost that shifts based on what the crowd collectively believes will probably happen. If they assume that an outcome is more likely than the current price suggests, they buy. If they believe it's overpriced, they sell. So users profit if their predictions come true and lose money if the outcome is different from the expected one.

Visitors to prediction market platforms trade against each other, unlike on classic sports betting platforms, where gamblers trade against bookmakers. Prediction market operators have zero stake in the result – they earn revenue from a small commission from each trader instead. The more people trade, the more profit a platform generates.

The binary contract

A binary contract in a prediction market is an event-probability contract. It is a “yes/no” priced between 0 and $1, representing the likelihood of the event’s outcome. For example, a 55-cent contract indicates 55% probability of the suggested resolution.

Upon expiry, a contract is worth either 0 or $1. A value of $0 represents 'no' and $1 represents 'yes'. However, traders can sell their positions before the event’s expiry. They can control losses or lock in profits this way.

The resolution-defining sources can be either decentralized oracles or authoritative data records. Market manipulation is avoided due to transparency and strict regulatory requirements.

How prices are set: the crowd, not the bookmaker

Prediction market operators do not take a stake in any outcome. Instead, they earn revenue from transaction fees charged on every trade — regardless of who wins or loses. This is fundamentally different from traditional sportsbooks, which profit from the margin built into their odds, typically 5–10% per bet. Because prediction market operators earn from activity rather than outcomes, their incentive is simple: the more people trade, the more revenue the platform generates.

Fee structures vary between platforms, ranging from 0.07% to 7% per contract depending on the market type and platform model. Kalshi generated $263.5 million in fee revenue in 2025 on $22.9 billion in trading volume. The industry's blended take rate has held near 0.48% through early 2026, with traditional sportsbook fees remaining considerably higher by comparison.

Trading on prediction markets is overwhelmingly retail in character. Roughly 82% of users traded under $10,000 in Q1 2026, with the majority of transactions averaging around $35 per trade. Growth is built on volume of activity rather than the size of individual bets — millions of regular users returning frequently to make small trades. For operators, this means revenue scales with user base size and engagement depth, not with attracting high-value depositors.

Now that we've covered the mechanism — let's talk about the people actually using it.

Who trades on prediction markets: four core segments

Even though the audience of prediction market platforms shares many characteristics, they can be grouped into distinct segments based on interests and behavior. Let’s dig deeper into it.

The crypto-native trader

Crypto-native traders are highly active on ultra-fast perpetual decentralised exchanges (DEXs) such as Hyperliquid and dYdX. Usually aged 24–38, mostly men, they prioritize high-speed, perpetual, decentralized exchanges.

Traditionally, different types of trades — perpetual futures, spot trades, and prediction market positions — were held in separate, isolated margin accounts, meaning capital was locked in silos and couldn't be shared across them.

Hyperliquid's HIP-4 update changed this. It allows traders to merge all three position types into a single unified margin account. As a result of this shift, many crypto-native traders are evolving into "hybrid traders" who combine traditional crypto trading with prediction market activity.

The political and news junkie

This layer of the prediction market audience consists of 28–55-year-olds who read the FT, Bloomberg, and Politico. They are active election-followers, Fed-watchers, geopolitics nerds. These are financially literate people, trading on Kalshi and Polymarket, mostly wagering from the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia.

The drifting sportsbook bettor

The drifting sportsbook bettors are 21–45 years old, traditional sportsbook users. Originally drawn to classic sports, this segment is increasingly interested in betting on non-sporting political and cultural events — such as the Trump cabinet exits, Super Bowl coach firings, and MVP votes. The main "tricks" are cash-out flexibility — bettors can exit early to cut a loss or lock in a profit — and tradability of positions. This is the first segment operators will lose if they don't react.

The retail investor / Finance Twitter cohort

This segment contains 25–45 old people, brokerage account holders, who are active at Finance Twitter/X. They view prediction markets as event-driven derivatives. They are highly motivated by the hedge and speculation on macro events (CPI, Fed cuts). Concentrated on Kalshi and Coinbase.

Mini-segment

This layer includes casual cultural bettors. Those are people aged 18-28 interested in cultural events like Eurovision, Oscars, etc. Important features for them involve viral context, low retention, and intense top-of-funnel.

What these segments have in common: the targeting profile

Let’s break down the core user criteria common across all segments mentioned above. They include:

1. Education and income. Most prediction market users have higher/college education, and their income is above the average. Prediction market users show strong overlap with the retail investing demographic.
2. Tech literacy and media diet. The users often own self-custody wallets. They prefer multi-platforms, and are comfortable dealing with order books. Their primary media channels include Twitter/X, Substack, finance podcasts, and publications such as the FT and Bloomberg. They are neither regular Facebook users nor TV viewers.
3. Prediction market users’ age and gender. The average age of traders is 28–40. Gen Z tends to get involved in trading very fast, but the liquidity is created by Millennials. 75–85% of prediction market platforms users are men.

Prediction market creates an opportunity to bring new segments of audience to your online platform as this kind of trading gains popularity fast. Crypto-users and people focused on retail investing are using such platforms very often.

Where prediction markets thrive: regional adoption map

The popularity and development of prediction markets varies significantly by country. Most traders still come from tier 1 countries. The comparison will help you to have a global awareness of the current event tradings’ demands in the world.

North America

It’s where the trend started — the US and Canada remain the biggest markets. Engagement is driven by retail investing penetration, political polarization, and the crypto ecosystem. Notably, ICE invested $2 billion in Polymarket.

Western Europe

Even though betting culture in Europe is highly developed and popular, prediction markets are still gaining strength. The reasons include sportsbook domination and regulatory fragmentation.

Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific region has a high-speculation culture though direct trading access remains restricted. Some countries may make a breakthrough — Singapore is a fintech hub with great potential; Japan and South Korea see high retail trading volumes, though their regulatory systems are tough. India also shows great enthusiasm, but faces a hostile regulatory environment.

Latin America

Latin America is the most underestimated region for prediction market development in 2026-2027. The region is characterised by mobile-first adoption, young demographics, and high crypto penetration, particularly in Argentina and Venezuela. Brazil is legalizing sports betting; event contracts may possibly follow.

Africa

Even though the African population is not yet fully ready for prediction markets and prefers classic sports betting — Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa show slow growth due to crypto-rails. Mobile money services (M-Pesa) can potentially boost prediction market development.

What this means for operators: 3 takeaways

Let’s sum up the main features to be taken into consideration while operating prediction market platforms. They include:

1. The prediction market is a great player acquisition and retention tool. Prediction betting allows operators to gain new audiences and keep existing ones on the platform using opinion-based bets as a cross-sale tool.
2. Target by media diet, not demographics. 25–34-year-old Twitter/X-active fintech male audience is the best target, however taking into account the rapid market growth, there are all chances the audience will expand massively in the near future.
3. Geography is not just a demand map, but also a regulatory map. The demand for event outcomes prediction exists worldwide, but the system can only work where event contracts are legal. Tier 1 markets are top priorities for 2026–2027, however the phenomenon is so big that operators won’t lose adding it to their platforms in almost any region of operation.