Prediction market platforms acquire users mainly through creators: sports and finance influencers, meme pages and celebrity deals, backed by referral codes, sign-up offers and ads timed to big events. At Emergence Media, we build that creator funnel for prediction market brands, with a paid-post disclosure on every post, 18+ targeting (21+ where local rules require it) and a restricted-jurisdiction check.
Emergence Media is a Web3 growth marketing agency based in Gurgaon, India, with 75+ clients. We run KOL marketing, PR, UGC and clipping, and concept ads for crypto, fintech, AI and iGaming brands. Our prediction market work grew out of our iGaming streamer and KOL campaigns for crypto casinos, which share the audience, the creators and the compliance questions. This guide covers how the platforms grow, the funnel we use, and the rules around it.
Rules and figures as of 5 November 2026. Prediction market regulation is changing month to month in the US and elsewhere, so check the live rules in each market before you plan a campaign. This is not legal or financial advice.
In this guide:
- What is a prediction market, and why is everyone searching for it?
- How do prediction market platforms acquire users?
- Why do creators and meme pages work so well here?
- What does the KOL plus meme-page funnel look like?
- What changed after the FTC referral?
- Who can you market a prediction market to?
- How do prediction markets market around sports events?
- How do AI assistants pick prediction market brands?
- How we run a prediction market campaign
- FAQ
What is a prediction market, and why is everyone searching for it?
A prediction market is a platform where people trade contracts on whether a future event will happen, such as a game result or an election. Each contract pays a fixed amount if the event happens and nothing if not, so its price reads as the crowd’s estimate of the probability.
A “Yes” share priced at $0.65 implies roughly a 65% chance. If the event happens, each share redeems for $1. If it does not, the share is worth nothing. Prices move as news changes expectations (MetaMask Help Center). In the US, the CFTC treats these event contracts as derivatives and has regulated prediction markets since it approved the first exchange offering binary options in 2004 (CFTC).
Demand has grown fast. Pew Research Center found that combined monthly volume on Kalshi and Polymarket rose from less than $5 billion in September 2025 to about $24 billion in April 2026 (Pew, 27 May 2026). A later Pew chart, which includes Polymarket US, shows volume doubling from $25.7 billion in May 2026 to $53.0 billion in July 2026 (Pew, 23 September 2026). Search follows the same line. In our own keyword research (DataForSEO, US, measured 3 November 2026), “prediction market” averaged 47,892 searches a month over the last year, up 523% year on year.
Our upcoming explainer, How Prediction Markets Work: A Guide for Marketers, covers the mechanics in the plain language we use in creator briefs.
How do prediction market platforms acquire users?
Prediction market platforms acquire users through five channels: creator and influencer programmes, meme pages, celebrity deals, referral and affiliate payouts, and distribution partnerships with brokerages and media. Paid search and social ads sit underneath, mostly timed to events.
- Creators and influencers. Kalshi and Polymarket rely on influencer marketing as their main growth channel, recruiting celebrities, finance creators and meme accounts to bring in retail traders (Fintech Growth Insider, 6 April 2026).
- Meme pages. The same report describes a Kalshi-sponsored Academy Awards post shared by the anonymous meme page @sarcasm_only, which has 17 million followers. A meme page reaches people who would never search for a trading app.
- Celebrity deals. Kalshi released celebrity ads around the NBA Finals and the FIFA World Cup featuring footballers including Lionel Messi, with the stars posting on their own accounts. A Wharton professor told CBS such deals “could easily be in the eight- to nine-figure range” (CBS News, updated 19 June 2026).
- Referral and affiliate payouts. Polymarket’s referral programme pays 10% of net trading fees on direct referrals and 5% on indirect ones, for the first 30 days after a referral signs up, under terms effective 28 May 2026 (Polymarket docs).
- Distribution partnerships. Brokerages such as Robinhood and Webull offer Kalshi’s event contracts to their own customers, putting the product in front of people who already trade (KPMG).
Creators do most of the early work. Referrals and partnerships scale what they start.
Why do creators and meme pages work so well here?
Creators work for prediction markets because every market is already a piece of content. A price on “will this team win tonight” is a talking point, a poll and a news hook in one, and creators can post it without inventing anything.
From our iGaming streamer and KOL work for crypto casinos, including BetFury and BC.Game, three patterns carry straight over:
- Live events drive attention. Streamers peak when something is happening in real time, and prediction markets are built around the same moments: match days, debates and award shows.
- Trust moves from the creator to the platform. A new user trusts the creator who explains the app before the app itself, so creator selection matters more than the size of the offer.
- Different creators do different jobs. Meme pages give reach, sports and finance creators give explanation, and community creators give conversion.
The rules carry over too. What regulators learned from casino streaming about age, disclosure and showing winnings now applies to prediction markets.
What does the KOL plus meme-page funnel look like?
The funnel we use runs in four stages: a meme page posts a live market as a talking point, a creator explains the market to their audience, the user lands on a sign-up page with a referral code and an age and location check, and the user makes a first trade. Each stage has a disclosure or check attached.
- Meme page (reach). A paid post shares a live market price as a talking point. The post carries a clear “Ad” or “Paid partnership” label. We buy meme pages for awareness, because much of their audience is not eligible to trade.
- Creator post (explanation). A sports or finance creator explains the market: what the question is, what the price means, and how resolution works. The creator discloses the deal in the post itself, not in a bio link, and makes no claim about returns.
- Landing and sign-up (eligibility). The landing page repeats the explanation, shows the offer terms in full, and runs age and location checks before any deposit.
- First trade (the metric). We pay and report on first trades by eligible users, not on views.
One rule overrides the rest: no creator shows winnings, real or staged. The next section explains why.
What changed after the FTC referral?
On 8 June 2026, the National Advertising Division of BBB National Programs said it would refer Kalshi to regulators, including state attorneys general, after Kalshi declined to take part in an inquiry into whether material connections with influencers and affiliates were clearly disclosed in its social media advertising (BBB National Programs).
The inquiry measured Kalshi’s posts against the FTC’s Endorsement Guides. A referral is not a fine, but it puts creator disclosure at the centre of how regulators look at this category.
Pressure kept building after June. On 12 August 2026, New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin sent letters to Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini’s Titan asking how they advertise in the city, how much they pay influencers and how far their marketing reaches younger users, with 14 days to respond. The letters followed a Wall Street Journal report that Polymarket had hired dozens of mostly college-aged creators to film themselves making fake profitable trades (Fortune, 12 August 2026).
The CFTC’s own consumer guidance lists promises of big payoffs, free money and celebrity endorsements as “red flags of a scam trading website” (CFTC). Clear disclosure is what separates a legitimate creator campaign from that pattern.
What this means for every campaign we run:
- Every paid post is labelled in the post, every time, on every platform.
- Creators get a written brief with banned claims: no returns, no “free money”, no winnings, no staged trades.
- We keep a record of every post, its disclosure and its approval.
Our cluster post, Prediction Market Influencers After the FTC Referral, goes through the disclosure workflow we use for creator posts step by step.
Who can you market a prediction market to?
You can market a prediction market only to adults in places where the platform is allowed to serve them. In practice that means 18 or older at minimum, 21 where local rules set that age, and nobody in a jurisdiction the platform restricts. Both lists differ by platform and change often.
| Rule | What it means for marketing | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kalshi requires users to be 18 or older to open an account, and some international jurisdictions are restricted | No creator whose audience skews under 18. Target 21+ where state or national gambling-style rules set 21 | Kalshi help centre | Checked 5 Nov 2026 |
| Polymarket’s international platform fully blocks 7 entries (sanctioned countries and occupied regions of Ukraine) and sets dozens more, including the US, UK, France and Australia, to close-only | Geo-target paid posts away from blocked and close-only markets, and brief creators in those markets not to promote it | Polymarket docs | Checked 5 Nov 2026 |
| US users of Polymarket go through Polymarket US, the version regulated by the CFTC | US campaigns point to the regulated US product, never the international site | Pew | 27 May 2026 |
| The CFTC proposed adding event contracts on sports, politics, culture and weather to the definition of “swap”, and its chairman describes them as within the agency’s exclusive jurisdiction | Federal status is being formalised while states continue to challenge sports contracts. Check state rules before any US sports campaign | CFTC | 9 Oct 2026 |
| Influencer disclosure under the FTC Endorsement Guides, as applied by NAD | Disclose in the post, clearly and conspicuously | BBB National Programs | 8 Jun 2026 |
Outside the US, we start from the platform’s restricted list, then check local gambling and financial promotion rules before any creator is briefed.
Paid ads have their own limits. ChatGPT ads, for example, prohibit real-money gambling, betting and cash-prize gaming, which is likely to cover prediction markets that pay cash on outcomes (see our guide to ChatGPT ads and who can run them).
How do prediction markets market around sports events?
Sports is the largest category by far, so the marketing calendar follows the sports calendar. Pew found sports made up 80% of trading volume on Kalshi and 39% on Polymarket since July 2024 (Pew, 27 May 2026).
Event campaigns build interest in the week before, push on the day, and run recap content the day after, while people are still talking about the result.
Sports also carries the most rules, from leagues, teams and states. Our cluster post, Prediction Market Marketing Around Sports Events, sets out an event-window calendar built around Super Bowl LXI in February 2027, with the restricted-jurisdiction check built into each date.
How do AI assistants pick prediction market brands?
When someone asks ChatGPT “what is the best prediction market”, the answer draws mostly on third-party pages, so being named depends on how much credible coverage a brand has elsewhere.
We measure this with citeOS, the AI visibility platform we built at Emergence Media. Across 39,948 AI citation events for 72 crypto brands, recorded from April to August 2026, 92% of citations landed on sites other than the brand’s own. The same study found that pages where a brand is the main subject earned more citations than pages that only listed it.
For a prediction market platform, that points back to the same creator work. YouTube explainers, Reddit threads and press coverage about the platform are the pages AI assistants read. Disclosed creator explainers build that coverage, which matters more in a category many ad platforms will not take.
How we run a prediction market campaign
Our process starts with eligibility and ends with first trades. In order:
- Market and age check. We map which countries and states the platform can serve, and which age applies in each.
- Creator roster. We pick meme pages for reach, sports and finance creators for explanation, and community creators for conversion. We check each creator’s audience age and location first.
- Brief and claims sheet. Disclosure wording, banned claims, and the facts creators may use, each traced to the platform’s terms.
- Approval and record. The client approves every post before it goes live, and we keep the post, its disclosure and its approval on file.
- Measurement. We report on eligible sign-ups and first trades per creator, and move budget to the creators who bring them.
For how creators fit a wider Web3 growth plan, see our Web3 marketing playbook, our list of crypto KOLs to follow, how crypto projects scale UGC and clipping, and our Web3 content marketing funnel. Our Web3 influencer marketing page covers the KOL service itself.
FAQ
What are prediction markets?
Prediction markets are platforms where people trade contracts on whether a future event will happen, such as a game result or an election. Each contract pays a fixed amount if the event happens and nothing if it does not, so its price works as the market’s estimate of the probability. In the US, the CFTC regulates them as event contracts.
Are prediction markets legal in the US?
CFTC-regulated platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket US operate legally at the federal level, and in October 2026 the CFTC proposed formally classing event contracts as swaps under its jurisdiction. Several states still challenge sports contracts in particular, so availability can differ by state. Check the platform’s terms and your state’s position before you trade or advertise.
Are prediction markets gambling?
It depends on who you ask. US federal regulators treat them as derivatives, while many state gaming regulators and several other countries treat some or all contracts, especially sports, as betting. For marketing, the safe approach is to apply gambling-style rules on age, disclosure and responsible messaging even where the law classes the product as financial.
Can you make money with prediction markets?
Some traders do, and many lose money. Research on more than 300,000 Kalshi contracts found that prices are informative, but low-priced longshot contracts win far less often than their price suggests (Bürgi, Deng and Whelan, UCD, 2025). That is why our creator briefs ban any claim about returns or winnings.
How do prediction market platforms acquire users?
Mostly through creators: meme pages for reach, sports and finance influencers for explanation, and celebrity deals for big events. Referral payouts, sign-up offers and partnerships with brokerages such as Robinhood then scale that reach. Since the June 2026 NAD referral of Kalshi, clear paid-post disclosure has become a basic requirement for every one of these channels.
Planning a prediction market campaign?
We check markets and age rules first, then build and run disclosed creator and meme-page campaigns that report on first trades. Talk to Emergence Media about your platform and the markets you serve.
