Retail users on prediction markets are losing money at a steeper rate than sportsbook bettors, according to new analysis from Citizens JMP Securities using Juice Reel transaction data from July 2025 through mid-March 2026. The note found a median return of minus 8% for prediction market users, compared with minus 5% for legal sportsbook users over the same period.
That gap cuts against the idea that prediction markets are simply a cheaper or smarter version of sports betting for ordinary users. Citizens’ view was that the problem is not platform hold in the sportsbook sense, but market structure. Prediction markets leave retail users facing sharper traders and market makers instead of a bookmaker that can limit or remove winning accounts.
The small users are getting hit the hardest
The same data shows that gains are concentrated at the top. Citizens found that only users with more than $500,000 in activity posted a positive median return, at about plus 2.6%. Smaller users consistently lost money, and the weakest results came from the smallest accounts, which posted losses as deep as minus 26.8%.
That says a lot about who these platforms are really serving well. Retail flow may help keep the market busy, but it is not being rewarded evenly. The people with the best outcomes look far more like traders than casual fans.
The fight for younger users may matter more than the loss rate
Citizens also found that Kalshi is pulling in a younger crowd than the major sportsbooks. About 24% of Kalshi users were under 25, compared with roughly 7% for DraftKings and FanDuel, while Kalshi recorded 6.3 million downloads in the six months to February 2026 as sportsbook downloads fell year on year.
That does not mean prediction markets are taking over the betting business today. But it does suggest they are pulling in newer and younger users, even while many of those users are losing faster than they would on sportsbook apps.
