Americans Traded Up to $34 Billion on Offshore Prediction Markets: Study

Americans were responsible for a whopping $34 billion in trading volumes on the offshore prediction markets during the twelve months ending April 2026. according to a new study on behalf of the Coalition for Prediction Markets, an industry group that includes regulated prediction market operators such as Kalshi, Crypto.comand Coinbase.

The research, which was conducted by Rutgers professor and Member of the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee Harry Crane compared data from offshore platforms – or platforms that do not allow US users and are not regulated by the CFTC – with platforms that have only US users, or only non-US users.

“As a share of all U.S. prediction market activity (including regulated and offshore platforms), we estimate that 12.5 to 31.5% of U.S. prediction market volume occurs on offshore platforms,” the study said.

“Based on current third-party estimates of industry growth, US-based activity in the offshore forecasting markets could grow to an estimated annual volume of $133 billion by 2030, assuming constant relative market shares of regulated and offshore markets,” it added.

The findings highlighted that Polymarket, the largest offshore platform, estimated that approximately $10.6-$26.7 billion of the $55.6 billion trading volume in the past twelve months was attributable to US users, even though they are not technically allowed on the platform.

The company, that was pushed abroad by the CFTC in 2022, said it was got the “green light” to go live in the US last fall. Since that time, it has slowly rolled out its regulated Polymarket US platform, but volumes were not separated in the study due to unreliable data.

Data from a Dune dashboard shows that the regulated US version of Polymarket has this booked approximately $5 billion in notional volumes to date.

A Polymarket representative did not immediately respond Decode request for comment.

Although Polymarket was the largest offshore market evaluated, the study also examined data from other unregulated markets such as Opinion, Predict, Limitless and Myriad. (Disclaimer: Myriad is a product of Decode parent company Dastan).

According to the Coalition, which is made up of regulated prediction market operators, this poses a significant problem because offshore markets are not held to the same standards as those under US regulation.

“Americans Use VPNs to Access Unregulated, Offshore Prediction Market Platforms That Offer Contracts on Death and War,” it is placed on X. “Now we finally know how big this market is.”

“These platforms are not subject to the same customer verification requirements, anti-money laundering controls, or market integrity oversight that protect U.S. traders,” it added.

While the CFTC proposed new rules on Wednesday would ban market outcomes that depend on war or murderit has been mired in tension and criticism in recent months states and legislatures are pushing back its regulation and the growing size of the prediction markets under its purview.

New CFTC Chairman Mike Selig has remained adamant about his jurisdiction over the platforms. say “see you in court” in February as states began to challenge the regulator’s authority.

Earlier this week, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke looked for answers about the supervisor’s supervisionquestioning whether it can effectively regulate prediction markets, while highlighting that its workforce has shrunk dramatically.