DraftKings expands its prediction market product with Crypto.com partnership

Why prediction markets are suddenly everywhere

Prediction markets have moved from niche finance into the mainstream of U.S. consumer apps this year, driven by new distribution partnerships, clearer regulatory pathways and a rush by platforms to keep users engaged between peak sports seasons. Crypto-native infrastructure has become the connective tissue. Crypto.com in particular has emerged as the common denominator behind a recent wave of launches, supplying a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered exchange for event contracts while letting consumer brands wrap that plumbing in familiar front ends.

Two high-profile moves illustrate the shift. Donald Trump’s media company announced Truth Predict on Truth Social, saying it will let users trade outcomes across elections, inflation and sports by exclusively routing contracts through Crypto.com’s U.S. derivatives venue. The company framed the effort as opening access to markets long dominated by insiders. The rollout will start with integration testing before expanding in the U.S. and then abroad once approvals are in place, according to the company’s statement. The launch follows a broader surge in event-driven trading volumes and rising valuations for prediction operators as investors bet that regulated “real-money” forecasting can scale.

Social gaming start-up MyPrize reached for the same toolkit. In July, the company said it would debut MyPrize Markets with Crypto.com as its first social gaming partner, bringing sports, crypto and politics predictions to a reported audience of more than one million users and stitching the markets into its livestreaming content. By plugging into enterprise-grade crypto market rails, MyPrize said it could onboard volume and deliver experiences at scale across web and mobile to U.S. and international users.

Compliance, controls and the arms race in infrastructure

The spread of event contracts is colliding with a more stringent compliance environment for wagering and financial products. That has put a spotlight on back-end partners that can satisfy regulators and thwart abuse at scale. Geolocation and identity controls are a particular focus as operators extend prediction products into jurisdictions where traditional online sports betting is restricted.

Geolocation specialist Xpoint, which provides address verification, spoofing prevention and suspicious wagering detection, recently secured new funding led by Bettor Capital to accelerate product development and deployments. The company said it is rolling out technology with multiple North American operators and international firms, including in Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. Xpoint’s expansion underscores how location integrity and regulatory reporting are prerequisites as consumer apps add markets that blur lines among sports, finance and politics.

This compliance arms race also informs the choice of exchange connectivity. Platforms have increasingly sought CFTC-regulated venues to list and clear event contracts, a posture intended to minimize legal risk and streamline scale. Crypto.com’s derivatives unit, which is registered and operating in the U.S., has become a favored route for consumer-facing brands to offer prediction markets without building an exchange from scratch.

Consumer reach: language, UX and audience expansion

Product teams are also widening the funnel to reach more casual users, including those not steeped in crypto or financial jargon. DraftKings has been methodically localizing its core sportsbook and casino experience, introducing a Spanish-language interface this summer to make account setup, navigation, betting information, support and responsible gaming tools accessible to a fast-growing cohort of Spanish-speaking customers in the U.S. and Ontario. The company said the setting can trigger automatically based on a device’s language, reducing friction for first-time users.

This localization push is part of a broader shift toward personalization and education that will matter as event contracts expand beyond hardcore sports bettors to users curious about politics, culture and macroeconomics. MyPrize’s decision to integrate prediction markets into livestreams points in the same direction: marrying entertainment with real-time trading to raise session length and social sharing. Truth Social is making a similar bet that its community can translate conversation into on-platform market activity.

Responsible gaming and risk management follow the users

As consumer platforms add novel market types, they are also racing to harden safeguards. DraftKings recently renewed its State Council Funding Program, which launched in 2022 and has delivered more than $2 million to state councils and the National Council on Problem Gambling, with more than $500,000 expected to reach 34 state councils in 2025. The company is embedding tools like My Stat Sheet to show users time spent, wagers placed and net outcomes, and it plans a national responsible gaming ad campaign during Problem Gambling Awareness Month with branding support from the NFL and NBA.

Those commitments reflect a broader industry calculus: drawing distinctions between entertainment and speculation while regulators scrutinize how prediction markets are marketed, who can access them and what guardrails apply across categories. For operators whose offerings now straddle sports, finance and politics, the compliance burden will likely rise, not fall, as volumes grow and demographics broaden.

Crypto rails meet mainstream brands

The common through line is the convergence of regulated crypto-market infrastructure with mass-market distribution. When Truth Social detailed its plans for Truth Predict with an exclusive arrangement to use Crypto.com’s U.S. exchange, it signaled that crypto-native venues can power consumer apps far beyond token trading. MyPrize echoed that logic in explaining why it chose Crypto.com for institutional-grade scale.

The bet is that familiar brands can normalize a complex product by abstracting away the plumbing. Users see themed markets and intuitive interfaces while risk, custody and compliance sit under the hood with regulated exchanges and specialized vendors. That pattern mirrors how many consumer fintech apps brought equities and options trading to the mainstream over the past decade by letting clearing firms and market makers handle the heavy lifting.

What to watch next

Three dynamics will determine how fast this space grows. First, regulatory clarity on the scope of permissible event contracts will shape product roadmaps. Platforms tapping CFTC-regulated venues are seeking to de-risk expansion into politics and macro data, but category-by-category decisions could still constrain supply.

Second, the durability of partnerships will matter. If Crypto.com remains the preferred exchange conduit, it will set technical standards for latency, collateral and settlement that influence user experience across multiple consumer apps. Competitive responses from other regulated exchanges could widen choice or compress margins.

Third, consumer protection and localization will be table stakes. Companies investing early in responsible gaming programs, transparent account analytics and multilingual interfaces are positioning to convert casual users into long-term customers while keeping regulators onside. Xpoint’s funding and deployments suggest the vendor ecosystem is gearing up to support that shift at scale.

Together, these forces point to a prediction market landscape that looks less like a crypto niche and more like a new layer of mainstream consumer finance and entertainment — distributed through household-name platforms, regulated under futures rules and underpinned by infrastructure designed for institutional throughput.