IPSEI Pulse | Issue #4
Date of release: July 20, 2026

The fourth issue of IPSEI Pulse examines the rapid growth of public attention around prediction markets and considers their emerging relevance to sport integrity following the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The analysis does not suggest that sport caused the wider expansion of prediction markets. Platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket cover politics, economics, technology, global affairs, entertainment and many other subjects. Their overall growth cannot therefore be attributed to sport alone.

Instead, the data point to a broader development: elements of a rapidly expanding prediction-market ecosystem became increasingly visible within the commercial and public-attention environment surrounding football’s largest global event.

What the data show

IPSEI compared English-language Wikipedia pageviews across two consecutive 365-day periods:

→ attention to the broader “Prediction market” page increased by 305.3%;

→ pageviews for Kalshi increased by 582.5%;

→ Polymarket recorded more than 1.03 million pageviews during the latest period, an increase of 85.7%.

These figures measure reference-page traffic. They do not measure platform adoption, trading activity, market volume, public approval or integrity risk. They also do not reveal which subjects brought users to the relevant Wikipedia pages.

Google Trends provided an additional timing signal during the World Cup period. Search interest for the exact term “ADI Predictstreet” reached its highest relative level on July 19, the day of the final. Kalshi also reached its highest level within its independently normalised series on the same day.

Because the Google Trends series were exported separately, their index values cannot be used to compare the absolute popularity of the terms. They indicate only how attention to each individual term changed over time.

The institutional context

In April 2026, FIFA announced ADI Predictstreet as its first official partner in the prediction-market category. FIFA’s announcement also referred to safeguards including monitoring of suspicious trading activity and structured information-sharing and reporting arrangements.

On the day of the final, Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset proposed a “third half”: a working dialogue aimed at developing the integrity framework for the 2030 World Cup before the tournament takes place.

The debate has moved beyond whether prediction markets will become part of global sport. They already are. The urgent question is whether integrity frameworks, monitoring systems and international cooperation can keep pace with their growing presence.

The emerging questions concern areas such as confidential sporting information, suspicious trading alerts, participant restrictions, markets involving individual player actions and cross-border information exchange. These questions are intended to support forward-looking discussion and do not imply that any integrity violation has occurred.

Strategic takeaway

The 2026 World Cup demonstrated that prediction markets are becoming increasingly relevant to the future boundaries of the sport integrity ecosystem.

The challenge now is to ensure that innovation is matched by credible safeguards, participant protection, effective monitoring and international cooperation.

Read the full interactive analysis, including charts, detailed figures, methodology and official sources:

https://ipsei.org/files/pulse/ipsei_pulse_prediction_markets_report.html

IPSEI Pulse is an analytical note by the International Platform for Sport Ethics & Integrity, tracking emerging signals across sport integrity, ethics, governance and public attention.

This analysis reflects IPSEI’s independent analytical perspective and is based on open digital-attention indicators. It does not represent the position of any external institution or organisation with which its authors or contributors may be affiliated. It should not be interpreted as an allegation of wrongdoing or as a legal, regulatory, financial or institutional assessment.