EKG Forecasts 2026 NFL Wagering at $40 Billion, Prediction Markets to Grab 21%

Americans will wager roughly $40 billion on the 2026 NFL season, Eilers & Krejcik Gaming (EKG) estimates in a Sept. 16 note titled “NFL Wagering To Hit $40bn This Season.” The firm forecasts $31.7 billion of regulated sportsbook handle, retail and online, plus $8.4 billion of what it calls prediction market “Handle Analog (HAN).”

On that basis, prediction markets would take about 21% of combined NFL wagering and sportsbooks 79%.

The note, by the EKG Sports & Emerging Verticals Team, calls 2026 the first season “in which prediction markets compete alongside regulated sportsbooks at scale.”

NFL Wagering Forecasts Diverge

EKG’s sportsbook figure sits at the top of the published range. The American Gaming Association (AGA) projects $29.5 billion of legal NFL handle, flat against $29.4 billion last season, and blames “backdoor sports betting on so-called ‘prediction markets’” for stalling growth.

H2 Gambling Capital forecasts $31.4 billion, down 0.8%, the first decline in the legal era. RotoWire’s analysis projects a record $32.3 billion at sportsbooks and $36.8 billion of prediction market trading volume on NFL outcomes.

The spread reflects definitions as much as disagreement. The AGA counts only commercial sportsbooks; RotoWire’s $36.8 billion is the notional trading volume, which its own analysis concedes “does not equate to sports betting handle.” 

EKG is the only forecaster we surveyed for this article that publishes a like-for-like combined figure, which is why its 21% matters and why its method deserves scrutiny.

How EKG Gets to 21%

The sportsbook side is conventional. EKG’s $31.7 billion implies roughly 8% year-over-year growth, above the roughly 5% underlying handle-growth assumption, excluding the World Cup, that the firm carries into the season. The premium rests on acquisition spending: bet365’s $365 headline welcome offer, $350 offers at FanDuel and Fanatics, and DraftKings’ $200 offer.

The prediction market side is where the model does its work. EKG builds its Prediction Markets Monitor on daily trade-level data from Kalshi, Polymarket International, Polymarket U.S., Nadex (Crypto.com), and CME, harmonized around two measures: Contract Volume and Execution Volume. A proprietary “PM-OSB Handle Translation” model then converts that activity into the Handle Analog, a sportsbook-comparable stake figure. The $8.4 billion is the output for the NFL, and 21% is simply $8.4 billion divided by $40.1 billion.

EKG’s monthly series shows how fast HAN has moved: about $2 billion, or 11% of combined handle, in March; $2.2 billion, or 13%, in April; 15% in May; and $5.6 billion, or 30%, in World Cup-inflated June, then $6.0 billion in July.

The note itself acknowledges the PM estimate “carries a wider uncertainty range than our regulated sportsbook forecast, reflecting both the category’s rapid growth and the inherent uncertainty in translating prediction markets activity into sportsbook-comparable handle.”

Breaking Down the EKG Assumptions

First, the translation ratio is not published. EKG discloses the inputs and the output but not the conversion, which is available only to Enterprise subscribers. 

Readers of the note itself cannot check that $8.4 billion follows from the exchange data. Exchange volume counts both sides of a trade, includes market-maker flow, and, at Kalshi, values every contract at $1.

Gambling Insider’s analysis of Kalshi’s August trade data found that convention produces a figure 3.5 times larger than premium staked across the exchange and 16.3 times larger on parlays. Small changes in how those effects are stripped out move the share by whole percentage points.

Second, Week 1 evidence points higher. Needham counted $14.6 billion in sports and parlay volume across eight exchanges for the Tuesday-to-Monday NFL week and put the “consumer equivalent handle” at $2.1 billion, with Kalshi at 76% of volume, Polymarket at 12%, and DraftKings’ DKeX at about 3%.

Jefferies counted $3.12 billion across eight exchanges on Sunday alone, of which $963 million of Kalshi’s activity was NFL-related; Kalshi’s taker-side Sunday volume, a closer proxy for handle, was $596.7 million, per InGame.

EKG’s own chart shows football contract volume on the exchanges it tracks at 2.94 billion contracts from Sept. 1-14, nearly four times the 746 million a year earlier, with Kalshi up 2.5 times and Polymarket U.S. rising from zero to roughly half a billion.

Set against that, $8.4 billion across about 23 weeks implies roughly $365 million of NFL Handle Analog per week. That is below the $2.1 billion all-sports Week 1 figure from Needham by a wide margin and below EKG’s own $1.3 billion-a-week June run rate.

Week 1 is seasonally strong, the Needham figure includes college football, and the two firms use different conversions. But the gap is large enough that either EKG’s translation is far more conservative than Wall Street’s or $8.4 billion is a floor rather than a midpoint.

We asked EKG for comment on whether the $8.4 billion number is a base case or a floor, but Gambling Insider had not received a reply by publication time.

Third, only one state has published a hard sportsbook datapoint for the denominator. New York’s statewide weekly report shows $594.6 million of mobile handle in the week ending Sept. 13, a Week 1 high, up 11.4% on the comparable 2025 week, on a hold of just 2.85% after a bettor-friendly weekend.

If New York’s typical share of national handle, roughly 15% to 16% on 2025 figures, held for Week 1, national sportsbook handle would be around $3.8 billion for the week. On that back-of-envelope basis, Needham’s $2.1 billion would put prediction markets at about a third of the combined pool, close to H2’s “about 35%” and far above EKG’s 21%.

The $3.8 billion national estimate and the one-third share are Gambling Insider’s calculations, not EKG’s, and they set an all-sports prediction market figure against an NFL-heavy but not NFL-only sportsbook week.

Fourth, the substitution assumption is provisional. Substitution is the share of money that would have been staked at a sportsbook but goes to a prediction market instead: the difference between prediction markets growing the betting pool and taking from it.

EKG’s modeling “suggests low-single-digit impact in the most competitive OSB states,” meaning sportsbook handle in those states is 1% to 3% lower than it would otherwise be. That is consistent with DraftKings’ claim of “no discernible impact” but not with BetMGM’s “more meaningful negative impact,” and below H2’s 4% to 6%. EKG says it is “not yet making a directional call” on whether substitution rises or falls through the season.

The State Map Is the Swing Factor

EKG flags that if prediction market access narrows disproportionately in non-OSB states, more activity “could become concentrated in states where regulated sportsbooks already operate.” Its July data put 44% of Kalshi’s retail demand in California and Texas, and 69% in states without legal sports betting.

That map is in flux. The Ninth Circuit has ruled against Kalshi twice in three weeks; Connecticut has issued cease-and-desist orders to nine platforms; a Michigan judge has enjoined Kalshi’s sports contracts; and New Jersey, Robinhood, and Crypto.com have petitioned the Supreme Court. 

EKG calls the season “an important read on how the two channels interact,” but “not a final verdict.” On the evidence of Week 1, the verdict on 21% is also open.

Charts: Gambling Insider, from Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, estimates and exchange data.