Pat Evans

Mike Mazzei entered Oklahoma’s GOP governor primary as a near-90% prediction market favorite, only to finish just behind Attorney General Gentner Drummond, forcing a runoff. Trump is now escalating his support for Mazzei ahead of Tuesday’s vote, while Kalshi and Polymarket again put him at 78%, setting up another test of whether markets and a presidential endorsement can overcome a close, unpredictable Republican electorate.

Trump-backed Darline Graham Nordone and Mike Mazzei both won Tuesday’s Republican runoffs, validating the markets that continued to price each as the favorite after shaky first-round performances. But Graham’s earlier failure to clear 50% in deep-red South Carolina, and Mazzei’s 0.6-point Oklahoma win after finishing second in the first round, show that Trump’s endorsement remains powerful without making his candidates invincible.

The 2028 Democratic primary market is becoming a three-way race, but Gavin Newsom is no longer leading it. With $194 million now traded on Kalshi and nearly $1.3 billion on Polymarket, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jon Ossoff have surged past the California governor, an early sign that traders are pricing a Democratic future less defined by the old establishment and more by the party’s progressive and battleground-state wings.

The Ninth Circuit has dealt Kalshi one of its biggest legal losses yet, ruling that the platform’s sports-event contracts are sports bets—not swaps protected by the Commodity Exchange Act. The decision lets Nevada enforce its gaming laws against Kalshi’s sports products, deepens a circuit split with the Third Circuit, and raises the stakes for prediction-market operators facing state regulators around the country.

New Jersey has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review its loss to Kalshi, giving the justices a direct chance to resolve the growing split over whether sports-event contracts are federally regulated derivatives or state-regulated gambling. The petition comes days after the Ninth Circuit ruled for Nevada and against Kalshi, the opposite conclusion reached by the Third Circuit in New Jersey.

More than $10.6 million has traded on Kalshi’s Texas Senate market since the race turned competitive in August, while Polymarket traders now narrowly favor Democrat James Talarico. The split-screen comes as Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and President Donald Trump, publicly acknowledge that Texas is no longer a race they can take for granted.

The league says contracts on player injuries, officiating, broadcast mentions and easily manipulated plays remain available months after its first warning. Its latest letter, sent days before the 2026 season begins, sharpens the pressure on Kalshi, Polymarket and other federally regulated exchanges, and notably calls their products “bets.”

Robinhood is expanding beyond its existing prediction-market infrastructure through a multiyear deal with Crypto’s OG, adding another regulated exchange engine to its app while taking minority ownership positions in both companies.

The appeals court affirmed Utah’s ability to enforce its gambling laws against Kalshi’s sports-event contracts, adding another federal appellate loss for the platform as New Jersey asks the Supreme Court to settle the growing conflict over whether prediction markets are federally regulated swaps or state-regulated sports betting.

More than $5.7 million has traded across Kalshi and Polymarket on Michigan’s open Senate race, with both platforms putting Abdul El-Sayed in the low- to mid-60s. But a new Detroit-area poll gives Republican Mike Rogers a narrow lead, underscoring how far prediction-market confidence has moved ahead of the conventional view in a race central to Senate control.