DraftKings Co-Founder Questions Whether Prediction Markets Are Ready to Compete With Sportsbooks

^{Pictured: Matt Kalish, co-founder of DraftKings}

DraftKings co-founder Matt Kalish has criticised Kalshi, saying on X that prediction market platforms still lag well behind sportsbooks in terms of user experience.

Kalish questioned whether sports prediction markets are ready to compete with regulated sportsbooks in the United States. “I don’t understand where the optimism is coming from. No platform currently gives the average user the same level of comfort as regulated sportsbook apps. They need another two to three years of product development — and that does not even take the regulatory issues into account,” he wrote.

Kalish said the current audience for sports prediction markets consists largely not of ordinary fans, but of experienced traders, professional bettors and financial market participants.

The DraftKings co-founder described such products as “extremely niche” and said that “only 1% of users understand what is actually going on there.”

He also argued that Kalshi is overstating its role in the sports prediction markets, even though the scale of its operations is not comparable with DraftKings and FanDuel, the two largest U.S. sportsbooks.

Kalish added that Kalshi is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on customer acquisition, despite the service not yet being ready for mainstream users. He said ordinary users who come to these platforms are at a disadvantage against professional market participants and may lose money quickly.

Kalish stressed that casual bettors do not yet see prediction markets as a clear alternative to sportsbooks.

“I have not heard the 99% of bettors who bet for entertainment say that prediction markets are fun. Mostly, they express confusion. Because the product is not there yet,” he wrote.

At the same time, the DraftKings co-founder acknowledged that his criticism could appear biased because of his ties to the sports betting industry.