DraftKings’ In-House Exchange Appears Closer To Launch After New Filings
Roundup: Spain moves to block Polymarket and Kalshi; Trump posts about prediction markets; Kalshi launches art markets.
We learned on Tuesday that DraftKings’ in-house exchange is called DKeX, and that it had self-certified its first sports event contracts.
DraftKings filed six different self-certifications with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, including markets for moneylines, point spreads and props. Here’s what DraftKings filed:
The launch of the exchange would allow DraftKings to operate its own prediction market, without having to use markets listed by CME Group, Crypto.com or other designated contract markets.
DraftKings noted during its Q1 earnings report that it planned to launch its proprietary exchange in Q2. DraftKings acquired Railbird Exchange late last year as it planned its foray into the prediction market industry.
It’s not clear how close to a launch we are, but Q2 does wrap up in June. We’re also watching for the launch of Rothera, the joint venture of Robinhood and Susquehanna.
More coverage from DeFi Rate.
Also of note: DraftKings launched five-minute crypto markets recently:
📊 The Ticker
For Monday, May 25, at Kalshi:
Volume: $554.6 million
Sports + parlays: 85.5% of volume
Crypto markets: 12.4% of volume
Trend line for daily volume:
Polymarket US volume on Monday: $51.8 million
Prediction markets roundup
🚨 The important stuff
ICYMI, President Trump posted about prediction markets:
The Average Guys Outsmarting Wall Street on Prediction Markets (NYT Magazine): “But not everyone needs insider tips to get rich on prediction markets. An army of “sharps” — a loosely coordinated group of traders who are each making six- and seven-figure annual returns — has found something far more valuable and far more interesting: a gap in the financial world order. These sharps have built a system to exploit it by figuring out what other people don’t yet know. Like Wall Street analysts, they get their edge from research: Hours scouring public voter data, building financial models and even contacting professors, journalists and actual Wall Street analysts to get a leg up. Right now, they are getting very, very rich.”
🔍 This is a really good read, although I am not sure the headline is great. It’s hard to read this piece and think these are “average people.” Can some regular folks find edges in the market? Definitely. Is that a common occurrence? Nope. Most average people are going to get chewed up and spit out by market makers and the people highlighted in the story.
Nine Crypto Whales Dominate Polymarket Disputes Worth Billions (Bloomberg): “Nine anonymous cryptocurrency wallets have effectively gained control over who wins and loses on Polymarket’s most contested prediction market bets, giving a tiny group of unappointed people outsized power over billions of dollars of wagers. Over the past year, nearly 2,000 Polymarket financial contracts have been disputed and adjudicated by the company’s complicated third-party resolution mechanism — including bets on war, elections and geopolitical conflict.”
Emily Nicolle@emilyjnicollejust nine wallets control half of all UMA tokens used for disputed bets on Polymarket. plus: the next-gen oracle project that Polymarket, UMA and Eigen were working on has stalled — no progress made for several monthsbloomberg.comNine Crypto Whales Dominate Polymarket Disputes Worth Billions2:57 PM · May 26, 2026 · 740 Views2 Replies · 2 Reposts · 5 Likes
⚖️ Legal and regulatory news
Polymarket, Kalshi Face Spanish Ban (WSJ): “The Spanish government is moving to block Polymarket and Kalshi, saying the two prediction-market platforms might be breaking the law by operating in the country without a gambling license. The ministry in charge of consumer affairs said it had issued an order to block Polymarket and Kalshi’s websites as a precautionary measure as officials look into possible violations of gambling laws, proceedings that are expected to stretch between three and four months.”
Let The States Regulate Gambling, Better Markets’ Amicus Brief Details (Better Markets): Dominick Freda, Legal Director of Better Markets, issued the following statement on the filing of an amicus brief in support of Tennessee’s authority to regulate Kalshi and other so-called “prediction markets,” which are nothing more than illegal sportsbooks:
“This case presents another opportunity for the federal courts to put the CFTC back in its lane and allow the states to apply their gaming laws to rein in Kalshi and the other illegal sportsbooks masquerading as prediction markets.
“Our brief details how Congress never intended to unleash nationwide gambling and certainly did not envision having the tiny and ill-equipped CFTC adopt the role of nationwide gambling czar. Our brief also highlights the many harms that unregulated gambling inflicts on the public, from the rampant insider trading that continues to make daily headlines to unmitigated problem gambling and even corruption in our elections.
“The CFTC continues to waste its resources and focus on cheerleading these unpoliced, unregulated casinos when it should focus on its real job: regulating the multi-trillion-dollar commodities and derivatives markets. It is more important than ever for the CFTC to regulate and police those markets so that Americans can count on stable prices for the many goods they rely on, from gas to groceries. The CFTC should leave gambling regulation to Tennessee and the other states whose laws and regulations have protected the American public for decades, and must be allowed to continue to do so.”
📣 Industry news
There is a new application for a designated contract market: Called Eventive III, LLC. From my review of the documents filed so far, I could not link the application to an identifiable company.
Kalshi Launches Art Markets, Bringing Prediction Markets to the World’s Premier Auction Houses (Kalshi blog): Kalshi today announced the launch of art markets, a new category of prediction markets tied to lot sold prices and total realized values at the world’s leading auction houses. The markets give collectors, art funds, dealers, institutional investors, and retail speculators a first-of-its-kind tool to express views on the art market—and hedge against it—with the precision and transparency of a regulated financial instrument.
For devoted art fans, this represents one of the only ways to use expertise to make money. Art, especially art sold through the major auction houses, is a famously inaccessible and illiquid asset class, which the majority of the population is priced out from speculating on. With derivatives on Kalshi, investors of all financial backgrounds can now access the asset class.
The launch adds fine art to a rapidly expanding roster of real-world asset categories on Kalshi. Over the past year, Kalshi has introduced markets tied to luxury watch auction results, agricultural commodity prices, Pokémon card graded sale values, and precious metals spot prices—building a platform where virtually any asset with a measurable outcome can become the basis of a regulated financial contract.
“Art is one of the largest and least liquid asset classes on earth, and it has historically been one of the hardest to hedge. A collector sitting on ten million dollars in impressionist paintings has no efficient way to manage that exposure—until now. We’re giving the art world the same financial infrastructure the rest of the economy takes for granted,” said Valeria Vouterakou, Legal Counsel at Kalshi.
More coverage from Barron’s.
Gemini Is Latest Prediction Market Operator To Self-Certify Parlays (InGame): “According to a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filing, Gemini — the crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, which expanded into prediction markets last year — self-certified a contract with the title ‘Will <outcomes> occur in <events>?’ the exact same title used by Kalshi in September.”
Premu.xyz: the decentralized Polymarket alternative – user curated prediction markets anyone can launch (press release): A new on-chain venue for prediction markets goes live today — no KYC, no disputed markets and no centralized gatekeeper – and anyone can list a market and earn from its creation.
Premu, a decentralized prediction-market platform, today announced the public launch of premu.xyz, bringing wallet-native, fully on-chain prediction markets to Ethereum and Arbitrum. The platform combines the breadth of mainstream event markets — politics, sports, crypto, and world news — with a high-frequency “fast market” engine that resolves five-minute BTC, ETH, and SOL up/down outcomes around the clock. From day one, Premu is positioned as a direct, credibly-neutral alternative to centralized incumbents like Polymarket and Kalshi.
Rain commits $100 million in liquidity ahead of V2 launch and World Cup expansion, becoming third largest prediction market globally by TVL (press release): Rain’s upcoming V2 protocol includes major infrastructure upgrades to enhance scalability, liquidity efficiency, and trading performance. A key addition is a new on-chain order book designed for both users and professional market makers, which enables deeper liquidity, larger trade execution, and a more advanced trading experience across the ecosystem. The protocol also leverages AI-powered systems to streamline market creation, categorization, moderation, and resolution workflows, supporting scalable global forecasting markets across virtually any category.
Roy Shaham, CEO of Rain, stated, “This is a defining moment for Rain and decentralized prediction markets. The World Cup is expected to bring massive global attention to the space, and V2 is being built to support that scale from day one. Committing $100 million in liquidity positions Rain among the largest players and signals a new era for decentralized forecasting infrastructure.”
📖 Everything else you should know/read
These States Are In Court With CFTC, Kalshi, Or Both, But Their DC Elected Officials Took Money From Kalshi (InGame): “InGame research on the Federal Election Committee website revealed that Washington, D.C. politicians representing states currently embroiled in litigation with Kalshi and/or its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), have accepted more than $89,000 from individuals employed by the nation’s most prominent prediction market between Jan. 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026.”
Kalshi Partner Puts Parlay Loss Data Behind $40,000 Paywall (Sportico): “Dune, a company that provides tools to track prediction market betting activity, removed two Kalshi datasets from public view on May 15—less than 48 hours after Sportico used them to analyze how much retail bettors were losing on parlays. Dune did not publicly acknowledge taking the information offline until the matter was flagged by a Sportico reporter on social media. Dune said it restored the once-free datasets last week—but only for its highest-paying customers. The Norwegian firm announced on its website it would limit the datasets to its top-tier paid plan, called Enterprise.”
Caesars Digital head: Prediction markets could prompt states to legalize igaming (CDC Gaming): “When the government sees the tax-revenue opportunity, I fear they will keep raising the taxes and I’m not sure how to stop that,” Hession said. “The business is incredibly competitive. Our normal competitors are constantly innovating and investing. New competitors are coming in that make up products overnight, like sweepstakes casinos. Now you have prediction markets. The argument that an 18-leg parlay on rebounds in the NBA is somehow economically significant and needs price discovery seems a bit stretched.”
This is what they call a teaser:
I wrote this at The Closing Line:
The timing collision here is worth noting. DraftKings launches five-minute crypto markets in the same week Spain moves to block Kalshi and Polymarket under gambling laws. Every platform is racing toward shorter durations and parlay combinations, which is the exact product form that European regulators banned binary options over in 2018. The Caesars exec burying the lede at the end nails it: "the argument that an 18-leg parlay on rebounds is somehow economically significant" is the strongest case against the industry, and it's coming from inside the house. Prediction markets won the regulatory war for price discovery, then shipped products that make the Better Markets brief write itself.