Bernstein Predicts $10 Trillion Prediction Market by 2035—10X Its Original Forecast
Bernstein raised its projection for prediction-market annual trading volume to $10 trillion by 2035, up from its prior $1 trillion by 2030 forecast issued in April. The bank expects rapid growth driven by a shift from sports-focused contracts toward markets tied to financial assets such as crypto, stocks and commodities.
Why It Matters
If Bernstein's outlook holds, prediction markets would scale from hundreds of billions today to a multitrillion-dollar market, reshaping where retail and institutional capital allocates to event-based contracts. The shift toward financial-asset contracts and new product types could broaden market participation and liquidity, but regulatory clarity remains a key variable.
Key Facts
- New Bernstein forecast: $10 trillion annual volume by 2035
- Prior Bernstein forecast: $1 trillion by 2030 (April)
- Bernstein 2026 estimate: $410 billion in volume for 2026
- Expected compound growth: Roughly 70% annual growth through 2035 (Bernstein estimate)
- Market size change 2025 to 2026: From about $50 billion in 2025 to roughly $300 billion in the first eight months of 2026 (industry-wide)
Bernstein updated its outlook for prediction markets in a client note, now forecasting that industry-wide trading volume will reach $10 trillion per year by 2035. That projection represents roughly a 24-fold increase from the $410 billion Bernstein expects the market to handle in 2026 and is ten times larger than the bank's April estimate of $1 trillion by 2030. The firm expects volumes to compound at about 70% annually through 2035 and observed strong near-term momentum: industry-wide trading rose from around $50 billion in 2025 to roughly $300 billion over the first eight months of 2026. Bernstein also documented shifts within the market mix, saying sports-related contracts — which made up 61% of volume in 2025 — are likely to decline to 38% by 2035. Contracts tied to crypto, equities and commodities, grouped as "financial assets," are projected to grow from 12% of volume in 2025 to 49% by 2035, becoming the largest category. Bernstein highlighted product innovation as a growth vector, pointing to KPI markets that let traders take positions on specific corporate metrics (like shipments or subscriber growth) and the expansion of perpetual futures beyond crypto into commodities and single-stock markets. The note also addressed regulatory uncertainty in the U.S., saying clear federal guidance for sports prediction markets is unlikely before 2027 or 2028 due to conflicting court rulings over whether such contracts are federally regulated derivatives or state-level gambling. Meanwhile, platform-level activity has accelerated: Kalshi's crypto share rose from under 5% in January to about 20% in August, its commodity trading surged to roughly $590 million year-to-date in 2026, and the platform's market share climbed to about 60% from 35% a year earlier. Bernstein quantified the addressable pool underlying financial-asset contracts at $700 trillion today, rising to $900 trillion by 2035; even a small capture of that pool would translate into multitrillion-dollar annual volumes for financial contracts alone, the note said. Firms active in the space, including Robinhood, have reported material revenue growth from event-contract businesses, and Bernstein described the $410 billion 2026 estimate as a floor rather than a ceiling for the year's industry volume.
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