Kalshi Overtakes DraftKings and FanDuel in Download Race

Prediction market platform Kalshi’s mobile app was downloaded more times in January than sports-betting apps DraftKings Sportsbook or FanDuel Sportsbook have been downloaded in any month, Apptopia said in a Tuesday (Feb. 3) blog post.

The Kalshi app was downloaded more than 3 million times in the United States in January, according to the post.

“Kalshi is legal in all 50 states even though users are allowed to bet on the outcome of sports games, props and stats,” Adam Blacker, director of public relations at Apptopia, wrote in the post. “As expected, it’s more popular in states where mobile app sports betting is illegal, but not by much.”

“Truly, there is close to no difference,” Blacker wrote. “This means people are choosing to use Kalshi because they like it, not just because they cannot get their sports betting fix where they live.”

Bloomberg reported Thursday (Feb. 5) that Apptopia found that the Kalshi app’s number of downloads in January was more than four times higher than either DraftKings Sportsbook or FanDuel Sportsbook.

Five months earlier, in August, the Kalshi app had only one-third of the downloads as those apps, according to the report.

Kalshi’s gains have occurred during the football season, the report said. August marked the beginning of the season, and the Super Bowl is set for Sunday (Feb. 8).

While Kalshi distances itself from traditional gambling, a “vast majority” of the activity on the platform since the football season began has been related to sports, per the report.

PYMNTS reported in December that there has been an influx of U.S.-accessible prediction market platforms because prediction markets, unlike sports betting and other gambling products, are now regulated at the federal level by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not at the state level by gambling commissions.

At the same time, there are challenges at the state level. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said Jan. 20 that she secured a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit against Kalshi that may block it from including sports and related event contracts on its prediction market in Massachusetts. The preliminary injunction will prohibit Kalshi from accepting those contracts from customers in the state until the company is licensed by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and adheres to other laws governing sports gaming.