DraftKings Says Predictions Are Now Central to Its National Growth Plan

DraftKings is no longer treating prediction markets as a side project. In its second-quarter 2026 update, the company said the product is already scaling faster than expected, with more than 600,000 customers using it and annualized trading volume rising from $2.3 billion to $11 billion between April and July. For high-risk payments players, the important part is the direction of travel: DraftKings is building a stack that touches brokerage, exchange and market-making, which is a very different fee and risk profile from a plain sportsbook.

1. On Friday, Aug. 7, during its second-quarter 2026 earnings call, DraftKings executives said prediction markets are becoming central to the company’s plan to operate as a nationwide sports commerce platform, not just a sportsbook. Co-Founder and CEO Jason Robins said in a press release that “our super app is now live nationwide, and Predictions is already growing faster than we anticipated.”
2. The product numbers are doing the heavy lifting here. DraftKings said more than 600,000 customers have used its predictions product, and annualized trading volume increased from $2.3 billion to $11 billion between April and July. That is the kind of growth that changes how a platform thinks about monetization, particularly if it can control more of the value chain instead of just routing traffic to someone else’s venue.
3. DraftKings also said it sees only about 1% customer overlap with the largest prediction market operator in sportsbook states. The company estimated that 80% to 90% of prediction volume there comes from professional or institutional-style traders. In other words, DraftKings is describing a market where its own customer base and the dominant volume base are not the same thing.
4. That matters because DraftKings now controls brokerage, exchange and market-making capabilities. In practice, that gives it a path to capture more fees, improve customer lifetime value and apply the same vertical-integration playbook that helped strengthen its sportsbook business. For PSPs and acquirers, this is the part to watch: once a platform owns more of the transaction chain, it tends to care more about control, margin and payout economics.
5. Financially, DraftKings reported $115 million in adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter, while customer-friendly sports outcomes created an approximately $80 million revenue headwind. Even so, management kept its full-year revenue guidance at $6.5 billion to $6.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA guidance at $700 million to $900 million. The company said its core business remains on track to generate roughly $1 billion in adjusted EBITDA this year.

The thing is, this is not just a product story. A sportsbook operator that starts talking about brokerage, exchange and market-making is changing the shape of its payment flows, customer risk profile and fee capture. That is the kind of shift that can matter to banks, PSPs and acquirers before it shows up in the quarterly headline numbers.