Genius Sports‘ new partnerships with Kalshi and Polymarket embody the company’s prediction markets strategy and prove that official data is vital for operators, said CEO Mark Locke on Thursday.
This week, Genius Sports announced separate deals with Kalshi and Polymarket, following through on its past commitment to establishing a significant presence in the sector. The agreements allow the operators to use Genius Sports data to settle sports contracts, and also include information-sharing and integrity services. The companies said the arrangements include restrictions on certain market types and greater visibility into trading activity.
“What we’ve established with Kalshi and Polymarket is a foundation upon which we will layer more content, more services, and more territories over time,” said Locke on the company’s Q2 earnings call. “It is the same compounding playbook that you have watched us execute in sports betting, now applied to prediction markets.”
Genius deals strengthen league ties via prediction markets
As alluded to by Locke, Genius built part of its business on providing regulated sportsbooks with official league data and related services. It works with numerous sports leagues and organizations worldwide.
Meanwhile, the bonds between leagues and prediction markets are also beginning to strengthen. Polymarket alone now has official partnerships with the likes of:
- MLB
- NHL
- UFC
- Various soccer leagues including the German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A, Spanish La Liga, Mexican Liga MX, and Major League Soccer
The U.S.-facing Liga MX partnership already includes Genius Sports, which has been supplying official Mexican league data to Polymarket since June. In the press release about the new extensive arrangement with Polymarket, the companies noted that the prediction market platform will get live-streaming rights and league IP related to select official competitions, including Serie A, an exclusive partner of Polymarket in the U.S.
For companies like Genius Sports and its competitor Sportradar, which also has a partnership with Kalshi, leagues and prediction markets working together opens more commercial doors, as every sports betting operator (whether state-regulated or Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered) needs match data.
“Over the past few months, both Kalshi and Polymarket have partnered with leagues like the Argentine Football Association, Liga MX, and Serie A, each built on official data and integrity from Genius,” Locke said on Thursday’s call. “Building on those league partnerships, we’ve now established direct commercial agreements with both prediction market platforms, covering a wide range of content across our data portfolio.
“What is clear is that the direction of travel is towards more official data, not less … We own the official data that the regulated ecosystem, sportsbooks, media, and now prediction markets depend on.”
Will NFL change course and follow the rest?
Notably absent from the list of sports leagues that work with prediction market partners is the NFL.
Genius Sports is the incumbent official data rights holder for the NFL, a status it has held since it won a competitive bidding process against previous rights-holder Sportradar and others in 2021. As the exclusive distributor, Genius Sports provides sportsbooks and media partners with real-time statistics and official sports betting data.
In the years since that initial agreement, the company and the league expanded the collaboration to include the sports betting streaming solution BetVision and the GeniusIQ sports data and AI platform. The parties renewed the partnership last year via a new deal that runs until the end of the 2029 NFL season.
On Thursday, Locke stressed that Genius Sports does not expect the league to “green-light” prediction markets in the near future, but he suggested that his company would stand to benefit significantly if the NFL followed other leagues by collaborating with prediction market platforms.
“Clearly it would be very significant,” said Locke. “There’s a financial significance that comes directly with the sale of the data for the most important league. There’s obviously the value of the affiliation that they get, which has a real monetary value as well. We’ve got a very close eye on it … if I were you, I wouldn’t be expecting that to come through this season.”
The NFL has stayed on the sidelines and, compared to MLB and the NHL, taken a cautious stance on prediction markets expansion into sports.
In late July, its SVP of Public Policy and Government Affairs, Brendon Plack, authored a comment letter to the CFTC in which he said that the CFTC’s prediction market rule proposal falls “significantly short” of the standards required with respect to combating integrity risks, protecting consumers, and guarding against manipulation and match-fixing.
Locke saw that in a positive light, suggesting that the NFL’s comment further evidences the need for the kind of official data and integrity services that his company provides. “The largest league in America has put on record that this category runs on infrastructure. That infrastructure is what we have spent two decades building,” he said.
Prediction markets a win-win-win for Genius Sports
While the NFL remains a holdout, along with the NBA, Locke reiterated that the pattern both in the U.S. and in Europe is showing that leagues are increasingly tying themselves to prediction markets.
“Globally, I think there’s an evolution and a move towards it. Partners like Serie A, Liga MX, they’ve all moved into the prediction market world. Expect that trend to continue and there to be additional opportunity. We see this as a real growth opportunity for us.”
Locke and CFO Bryan Castellani said Thursday that the company generated “meaningful revenue” from the prediction markets category in Q2, before the new deals with Kalshi and Polymarket came into effect. Castellani expects to continue to see a “nascent rise” in that revenue.
As well as the core data and integrity partnerships, Genius Sports is also seeing rewards from its $1.2bn acquisition of digital sports and gaming media network Legend in early 2026. Locke called out prediction markets as the “most visible example” of media audience cross-sell since the acquisition.
Ultimately, Genius Sports believes it is winning in three distinct ways by working with prediction markets:
- Supplying its data services and integrity deals
- Selling its direct data and pricing services to market makers
- Through media marketing
“Frankly, with the number of prediction market operators coming into the space, the demand for our products and services is growing,” Locke added. “… We own the official data that the regulated ecosystem, sportsbooks, media, and now prediction markets depend on, and we own the audience layer on top of it. We believe we are only just beginning to monetize the full potential.”
Genius Sports revenue growth exceeds expectations
Locke spoke to analysts after Genius Sports posted Q2 results that showed a 65% year-over-year increase in group revenue to $195.5m. Both its revenue and its adjusted EBITDA exceeded the company’s projections, and the company raised its full-year revenue and EBITDA guidance as a result, to respective midpoints of $1.02bn and $290m.
The company’s Media Technology, Content & Services division’s revenue nearly tripled, up 193% year-on-year to $78.2m, while its Betting Technology, Content & Services arm produced $117.4m of the total revenue, up 28%. Total operating loss fell from $80.7m to $55.7m.
