Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower reported that the 2026 Super Bowl highlighted the unprecedented growth the Kalshi (KALSHI) platform saw in 2025, largely due to its substantial advertising efforts coupled with its ability to compete with traditional sports betting apps.
According to Sensor Tower estimates, the Kalshi mobile app saw its highest ever daily downloads in the app’s history during the Super Bowl weekend, peaking at ~150K downloads in the U.S. on the day before Super Bowl Sunday. That surge in downloads came at the expense of legacy sports betting platforms such as DraftKings (DKNG), FanDuel (FLUT), and BetMGM (MGM) (GMVHF), which all saw steep year-over-year declines for app downloads during Super Bowl weekend. Fanatics (FANA) was noted to be the only outlier of the cohort of sports betting platforms, while prediction betting platform Polymarket (POLYMARKET) followed Kalshi’s path with a big spike in downloads.
Sensor Tower
“Kalshi’s ambitious marketing blitz in 2026 has resulted in the company ranking within the top 50 digital US advertisers by spend. In contrast, Kalshi ranked outside the top 40,000 advertisers during the same period in 2025,” highlighted Sensor Tower. Notably, Kalshi (KALSHI) outspent Polymarket (POLYMARKE) in the U.S. by ~19X during the 2025 NFL season and outspent DraftKings (DKNG) Sportsbook by 35%.