Which Market Best Predicted the Big Game
A story in eight charts
Last week, we ran a poll asking you which prediction market (among
, Kalshi, and Betfair) wound up having the sharpest pricing leading up to and during S*per Bowl LIX.You weren’t sure, but one thing you knew was it wasn’t gonna be Kalshi.
And that was probably a reasonable guess, given they’d been absolutely curbstomped by Polymarket, volume-wise. (We don’t yet have Betfair volume, but will update with it if/when we get it.)
A glance back at the conference championships in on January 26 hinted otherwise though.
The price action during the afternoon matchup between the Eagles and the Commanders was pretty similar across the three platforms. A little chunkier and spastic on Kalshi (a function of lower volumes and whole penny pricing), but no obvious leaders/laggards.
Notably, though, Kalshi diverged from the other two after the final whistle, fading the ultimately victorious Eagles a bit as the Chiefs-Bills game got underway.
But it was during that second conference champsionship that we saw some separation first emerge. That was also a much closer contest, with the favorite switching 9 times during the game, according to ESPN Analytics.
Here, when it mattered more (and there were multiple opportunities to quickly double or triple up), Kalshi began to shine. Its pricing was still the chunkiest and the most spastic (again, lower volumes and the inexpiable whole penny pricing), but if you discarded the spikes and watched for sustained moves, you’d usually anticipate a Betfair move coming a couple minutes later, with a corresponding Polymarket move a couple minutes after that.
Simply shifting Betfair’s pricing ahead by 2 minutes and Polymarket’s by 4 minutes syncs things up rather nicely. The prices don’t always exactly agree, but Kalshi’s leadership is pretty well zeroed out.
Before we move onto the Big Game itself, here’s a quick peek at the market action over the two weeks following the conference championships. All tell a similar story (the slight underdog Eagles gradually shortening their odds), but the whole penny chunkiness is on full and grotesque display.
The Su&er B*owl itself, as you’ll recall, was a pretty one-sided affair, with the Eagles flying to an easy victory that was all but assured by halftime.
Still, the first three scoring drives gave traders a few discrete opportunities to display their shifting expectations. And once again, despite its relatively miniscule volume, Kalshi led both Betfair and Polymarket on each significant move, consistently by roughly the same 2 and 4 minutes, respectively.
Make the same adjustment, and everything lines up neatly.
What’s the upshot? Kalshi, despite 1) being the newest entrant into sports futures among the three, 2) sticking with the insufferable whole penny pricing, 3) suffering the occasional price spasms, and 4) sporting mugh lighter trading volume, appears to have had the sharpest (or at least most swifly reactive) in-game pricing.
Whether Betfair and Polymarket traders were simply tailing Kalshi prices or were independently (but a bit more slowly) arriving at the same directional adjustments is less clear, but also perhaps less relevant. Either way, you likely could have made a small but consistent profit on the highly liquid, tight-spread Polymarket contracts by keeping an eye on Kalshi, ignoring the spikes, and chasing the sustained moves.
If you actively traded any of the three platofrms during the game, what was your strategy? Did you attempt to exploit the price lag or other cross-market inefficiences? Did you use any non-prediction market inputs (ESPN, sportsbooks, etc.) to guide you?