Kalshi, a prediction market which started offering sports betting on its platform in January, provides a window into which NFL teams fans support with their money. To no surprise, the Dallas Cowboys—football’s most valuable and most profitable franchise—are the most popular among users.
Between Aug. 4—exactly a month before the 2025 NFL regular season started—and Dec. 1, there was more than $14 billion in trading volume on Kalshi’s platform. NFL contracts on single game moneylines and spreads accounted for $3.8 billion, more than a quarter of all volume, during that span.
Of that hefty total, there has been $216 million in volume bet on the Cowboys to win or cover the spread. Dallas is followed by the Kansas City Chiefs ($204 million), winners of Super Bowls 57 and 58; the Buffalo Bills ($191 million), the second-winningest franchise of the 2020s; the Philadelphia Eagles ($188 million), reigning Super Bowl champion; and the San Francisco 49ers ($162 million), the 2023 NFC champion.
It likely helps that the Cowboys and 49ers play in states where Kalshi is available but traditional sportsbooks are not. Missouri, where the Chiefs play, has not offered legal sportsbook betting for most of this NFL season. The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), not individual states, oversee prediction markets as if they are financial assets.
It is a sports betting adage that the public likes betting on favorites. While that saying doesn’t directly apply to prediction markets, where all contracts include a wager on both sides, Kalshi users clearly prefer games featuring winning teams rather than losing ones. The three teams generating the least volume this season are the 1-11 Tennessee Titans ($38 million), the 2-10 New Orleans Saints ($47 million) and the 3-9 Cleveland Browns ($50 million).
A strong correlation also exists between volume and teams’ social media followings. The Cowboys are tied with the New England Patriots for the most Instagram followers with 5.1 million, while the Titans are tied for last with just 1 million. The Chiefs and Eagles are the NFL’s most-followed franchises on TikTok, with 5.3 million and 4.1 million followers, respectively.
It must be noted that prediction market volume, which includes trades involving institutional market makers and does not precisely measure each individual’s risk, is not interchangeable with traditional sportsbook handle. The data, however, still gives us a relative sense of which teams and games drive the most betting activity.
The biggest game of the year for Kalshi volume was the Cowboys’ 40-40 overtime tie with the Green Bay Packers on Sept. 28. That scorigami-generating Sunday Night Football nail-biter beat out even the Chiefs-Cowboys Thanksgiving showdown, which drew record TV ratings but ranked just sixth in terms of Kalshi volume. All in all, 16 of the top 20 were Thursday or Monday games, showing that users will bet more on a game when it has their undivided attention.
While individual player props make up a tiny fraction of Kalshi’s NFL volume, we can still look at how the league’s star players stack up. Eagles running back Saquon Barkley is the only player in the league with more than $1 million in volume related to his performances so far this season. The next five players behind him are Bills quarterback Josh Allen, 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart and Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.