America’s new love affair with gambling reached a crescendo on Super Bowl Sunday, when federally regulated prediction market Kalshi processed an eye-popping $871 million in trading volume—most of it tied to the NFL’s biggest game of the year. The haul capped a weekend that also saw the Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 29–13, but the more telling scoreline may have been the one between old-line sportsbooks and a new generation of finance-flavored betting apps.
The gambling revolution took off around 2018, when platforms such as DraftKings and FanDuel rode a wave of state-by-state legalization, and the old stigma separating professional sports and gambling broke away dramatically. Long a feature of European soccer, with gambling sites sponsoring football clubs’ kits, the Paddy Powerization of America led to gambling partnerships with sports brands including ESPN, the NBA, and the NFL.
