IG chief challenges prediction-market volume claims as court fight nears

IG Group chief executive Breon Corcoran has challenged the way leading prediction-market platforms present their scale, arguing that net gaming revenue is more meaningful than notional trading volume.

Corcoran said some of the largest operators were “talking up their notional traded volume with great gusto,” according to Casino.org. Notional volume measures the value of all contracts traded, while a sports-betting handle measures the capital committed by traders, making direct comparisons between the two measures flawed.

He said IG was the only publicly traded company regularly discussing prediction-market revenue, while acknowledging that Robinhood Markets had disclosed such figures in the past. His comments put the emphasis on revenue retained by platforms rather than the headline turnover generated by contracts changing hands.

The remarks come as IG prepares for a possible Supreme Court ruling against sports event contracts. Corcoran said clarity over sports derivatives could arrive “sooner than we anticipated,” though the court’s published docket for its upcoming session had not formally included a prediction-market case at the time of the report.

As we reported in July, IG agreed to buy Underdog for $1.1 billion upfront, with up to $200 million in performance-related payments, in a transaction valued at as much as $1.3 billion. The deal places the FTSE 100 company in the US prediction-market arena as the sector’s regulatory future remains unsettled.

A Supreme Court filing submitted by Ohio, 38 other states and the District of Columbia on Oct. 7 said federal and state courts were divided over whether the Commodity Exchange Act pre-empts state sports-gambling laws. The states argue that event-contract platforms characterize sports bets as swaps under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s exclusive authority, while the states maintain that such wagers remain subject to their gambling rules.

The filing said Kalshi began offering sports bets on Jan. 22, 2025, after certifying to the CFTC that the products would trade on its designated contract market under federal law. Kalshi describes those products as event-contract derivatives; states contend their systems of licensing, exclusion lists, age limits and spending controls should still apply.

The conflict is significant because sports have become the dominant category on at least one major exchange. A Pew Research analysis cited by ABC News found that sports represented up to 80% of Kalshi’s total trading volume, compared with less than 10% each for politics and cryptocurrency.

Twenty states are involved in litigation over whether prediction markets fall exclusively under federal supervision or state gambling laws. State authorities say the platforms evade gambling rules and taxes, including in Texas, California and Utah, where conventional sports gambling is otherwise not permitted. Prediction-market advocates counter that exchanges do not act as the house and instead take a cut of wagers irrespective of the outcome.

Divergent appellate rulings have prompted gaming operators, exchanges, state gaming commissions and major leagues including the NFL to seek a definitive ruling. Sell-side analysts have speculated that the Supreme Court could hear a prediction-market case between November and April 2027, while multiple amicus briefs on election and sports event contracts are already before the court.