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If the research firm’s $190 billion taker volume estimate proves accurate, it’d represent a more than eightfold increase from the $22 billion taker turnover seen last year.
Potentially boding well for the Macquarie forecast are at least two factors. First, there are signs of turnover increases across a variety of yes/no exchanges. Second, volume surged to start September with those spikes arriving even before the NFL season kicked off.
As Macquarie analyst Chad Beynon points out, prediction markets generated $4.3 billion in taker volume during the first week of September without any help from the NFL, building on momentum from the 2026 World Cup. However, the NFL’s impact was immediate, with taker volume hitting a daily record during Week 1 of the campaign.
How to play Lava Loca
It coincided with the beginning of the NFL season in the US, viewed as a peak commercial period for sports data monetisation. Genius also maintains partnerships with DraftKings and FanDuel, both of which signed extensions to remain as NFL partners ahead of this season.
Citizens gaming analyst Jordan Bender wrote in a 16 Sept. note that with the NFL season now under way: “Genius should benefit from increased spending across both traditional sports betting and the emerging prediction market industry.”
Added Bender: Genius’ recent deals with Kalshi and Polymarket “have provided an incremental positive catalyst for [Legend founder] Mr Kisberg and team”.
How to play Lava Loca
That would also shift the basis on which studios compete. If sophisticated development capabilities become accessible to a wider range of creators, scale alone becomes less of an advantage.
“It becomes less about how many developers you employ and much more about how creative you are and how well you understand the player,” Curwen says.
For an industry already producing content at enormous scale, that distinction is important. The promise of Game in a Box and Studio in a Box is not simply that they can help put even more games into an already crowded market.
