Kalshi to Become a World Cup Partner as It Pursues More Growth

Kalshi, one of the biggest prediction market companies in the world, is set to become an official partner of FIFA, the group that runs the World Cup. The company plans to announce a deal on Friday that links it to the world's most-watched soccer tournament. Kalshi made the deal by teaming up with ADI Predictstreet, a lesser-known platform that already held an official World Cup prediction market deal. This means Kalshi's name and logo will appear on ads around the field, on TV, and online during World Cup matches.

Kalshi is a prediction market, which is a platform where people place bets on what they think will happen — like who will win a soccer match. The company has grown very quickly, and sports betting has been a big reason for that growth. Last month, investors decided the company was worth $22 billion, more than four times what it was worth back in October. That jump in value shows just how fast Kalshi has been expanding.

The World Cup has been a huge event for Kalshi. In just the first two weeks of the tournament, people placed nearly $10 billion worth of bets on World Cup games through the platform. On some days, Kalshi recorded more than $1.6 billion in bets in a single day, which is the highest it has ever seen. Before the tournament, the platform was handling about $1 billion a day, so the World Cup gave it a major boost.

The company Kalshi is partnering with, ADI Predictstreet, is based in Abu Dhabi and only recently opened for business. Its logo has appeared on stadium screens and in TV footage from matches, but it has not attracted many bettors — some games had less than $20 in total bets. Under the new deal, Kalshi will send some of its betting traffic to ADI Predictstreet's platform in countries where Kalshi does not fully operate. Kalshi is available in more than 100 countries, while ADI Predictstreet works in only a small number of markets.

All of this growth has also made Kalshi a lot of money. The company is now bringing in well over $2 billion in revenue each year, according to someone familiar with its finances. That strong performance has people talking about something even bigger: an IPO, which stands for 'initial public offering.' An IPO is when a private company sells shares of itself to the public on a stock market for the first time.

Kalshi's CEO and co-founder, Tarek Mansour, spoke about the IPO idea on the TV channel CNBC this week. He confirmed the company is 'thinking' about going public but said it would not happen this year. He noted that a company growing as fast as Kalshi naturally has to have that kind of conversation. For now, the World Cup partnership is the next big step as the company keeps building toward its future goals.