Polymarket sees 9X increase in NFL and college football volume

Trading on Polymarket’s NFL contracts jumped approximately 4,399% week-over-week during the period of September 7-13, 2026, reaching $27.62 million on its Global platform. The US arm of the platform posted a 1,760% week-over-week gain to $23.20 million over the same stretch. What the numbers actually look like Polymarket Global’s total sports trading volume rose roughly 104.7% in a single weekly snapshot, landing at around $499 million. When including Kalshi, Polymarket’s main US-based rival, the combined sports prediction market hit approximately $14.1 billion in volume during one week in September 2026. Kalshi posted around $983 million in NFL volume in Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season alone. Within months of launching its US operations in late 2025, Polymarket captured roughly 43.8% of Kalshi’s football trading volume. College football volume climbed into the hundreds of millions in early September 2026. Temporary outages on Polymarket’s platform during peak trading periods did dent its share somewhat. Why this is happening now Polymarket had already been building momentum through the 2026 World Cup, which served as a proving ground before the NFL season. Polymarket’s ability to op...