It might still feel like the height of summer, but the start of a new NFL season is fast approaching.
Super Bowl LXI at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, February 14 is a long way off, but franchises across America have been busy putting in the hard work to get ready for the big kick-off in September.
NFL prediction markets have been soaking up key tells about what could be to come, including free-agent signings, trades, draft picks, reports from off-season training camps and preseason performances.
What do prediction market traders know before the new season gets underway when the Seattle Seahawks host the New England Patriots on Wednesday, September 9? That midweek start is a break from the traditional Thursday opener, and there is a reason for it: the league has moved the first game forward to make room for its first regular-season fixture in Melbourne, Australia, where the Los Angeles Rams meet the San Francisco 49ers the following day. It is only the second Wednesday start since 2012.
Let's look at how prediction markets work in the world of the NFL and dive into the numbers. All prices below were read on 20 August 2026.
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Super Bowl LXI prediction markets are wide open
The Los Angeles Rams lead the Kalshi Super Bowl 2027 prediction markets (https://kalshi.com/markets/kxsb/super-bowl/kxsb-27) at 15.5%, ahead of Seattle and Buffalo at 7.5% each. The Baltimore Ravens are at 6.5%.
The Super Bowl will take place at the Rams' home field of SoFi Stadium, and the Polymarket Super Bowl prediction market (https://polymarket.com/event/pro-football-2027-champion-20260729185915366?via=ipredicta-co) takes a similar view, with the Rams at 14.5%.
The market clearly favours the Rams, but a probability in the mid-teens also shows how open the race remains. Read the other way round, both venues put roughly an 85% chance on somebody other than Los Angeles lifting the Lombardi Trophy.
| TEAM | KALSHI | POLYMARKET |
|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Rams | 15.5% | 14.5% |
| Seattle Seahawks | 7.5% | 8.5% |
| Buffalo Bills | 7.5% | 8.5% |
| Baltimore Ravens | 6.5% | 7.3% |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 5.5% | 6.3% |
Seattle is worth a second look, because the two venues have swapped places on the defending champions. When this piece was first drafted, Kalshi had the Seahawks at 8% and Polymarket at 7%. Today those are the other way around. The gap is small, but it is a useful reminder that a cross-platform table is a photograph rather than a fact: two independent books, with different traders and different fee structures, will not agree, and the ordering between them can flip inside a fortnight without anything happening on a football field.
That is not confined to the NFL. The same thing happened across our Premier League markets earlier this month, on a completely different sport and a different pair of contracts.
That openness does not just apply to the Rams, either. Both venues have the top three teams at around 30% to 32% combined, meaning roughly a one-in-three chance of the champion coming from that group. Add the next two contenders and the top five still account for less than half of the board, suggesting an unusually open race.
It is also worth noting how sharply LA's market position changed after they traded for Myles Garrett. Cleveland sent the edge rusher to Los Angeles in exchange for Jared Verse and multiple draft picks, and the Rams moved from around 11% to about 16.5% on Kalshi in the aftermath, holding that range since. (https://www.si.com/prediction-markets/rams-super-bowl-market-spikes-on-kalshi-01kx69pxwt0g)
A five-point move on a single transaction is a lot in a market where the favourite only trades in the mid-teens. It is roughly a third of the Rams' entire Super Bowl price, attached to one player arriving.
There is no clear favourite in NFL MVP prediction markets
The NFL MVP prediction markets are even more open, with no player given much better than a one-in-seven chance of winning the award.
Josh Allen tops Kalshi's MVP prediction market (https://kalshi.com/markets/kxnflmvp/ap-pro-football-regular-season-mvp/kxnflmvp-27) at 10.5%, while in Polymarket's MVP prediction market (https://polymarket.com/event/pro-football-2026-mvp-winner?via=ipredicta-co) he is priced three points higher, at 13.5%.
| PLAYER | KALSHI | POLYMARKET |
|---|---|---|
| Josh Allen | 10.5% | 13.5% |
| Justin Herbert | 9.5% | 11.5% |
| Lamar Jackson | 9.5% | 10.5% |
| Joe Burrow | 9.5% | 8.1% |
| Drake Maye | 6.5% | 9.5% |
While there is again consensus on the leading contender, neither venue gives its favourite better than about one chance in seven. With the top four on Kalshi separated by a single percentage point, the board shows how difficult these calls are before a regular-season snap has been taken.
One thing that does look likely is the award going to a quarterback. There are no non-quarterbacks in serious contention: Polymarket prices Saquon Barkley at 0.4% and Christian McCaffrey at 0.5%, with Myles Garrett, fresh off a record-setting sack season, at 0.15%. The MVP has gone to a quarterback in the overwhelming majority of recent seasons, and the market is not betting against that pattern.
A word on how to read the two columns above. Each venue's book is quoted on its own terms, and the numbers in one column should not be added together or set against the other column as though they were measuring the same pool of money. On Polymarket in particular, the individual bids across the full board currently sum to slightly more than 100%, which is what an order book looks like when some of its quieter contracts are carrying stale quotes. The headline prices are perfectly usable. The set of them is not a tidy probability distribution, and we are not going to present it as one.
The most interesting markets might not be about the Super Bowl
Sure, we all want to brag about correctly picking who is going all the way before the season has even got underway, but there are plenty of other NFL prediction markets which give unique insights into what could be in store. Our sports prediction markets coverage tracks these across the season.
For example, take the favourites. While the Rams have around a 15% chance of winning the Super Bowl, Polymarket's NFL playoffs prediction market (https://polymarket.com/event/nfl-team-to-make-postseason?via=ipredicta-co) is vastly more confident of them simply making the playoffs, giving them an 80.5% chance.
In other words, traders see the Rams as very likely to reach the postseason, but far less certain they can navigate it and win the championship.
It is a similar story with Buffalo. Polymarket gives the Bills a 76% chance of reaching the postseason, with Baltimore at 75.5%, Seattle at 66.5% and Kansas City at 64%. At the other end of the market, Arizona are priced at just 7.6%, while the New York Jets are at 10%.
Note that this is a different shape of market from the two above. Only one team can win the Super Bowl, so those prices describe a single outcome being divided up. Fourteen teams reach the postseason, so these probabilities are not competing with one another in the same way and are not meant to add up to anything.
Kalshi's NFL win-total prediction market (https://kalshi.com/markets/kxnflwins/pro-football-wins/kxnflwins-27lar) offers contracts covering expectations for individual teams' records across a regular 17-game season.
The Rams are currently given a sky-high 94% probability of winning 8 or more games, and 90% for 9 or more.
The numbers begin to decline more sharply from there, with a probability of 81% for 10 or more, 70% for 11 or more, 56% for 12 or more, and 40% for 13 or more.
Think they can win all 17? Well, that is a huge ask, and it is reflected by the probability sitting at just 2%.
A note on size, and why the two venues cannot be compared directly
These are big markets, but the two exchanges do not describe themselves in the same units, so their headline numbers are not comparable.
Polymarket reports dollars. Its Super Bowl LXI market has traded roughly $45.5 million across its life, with about $180,000 changing hands in the twenty-four hours to 20 August. Its MVP market has traded around $430,000.
Kalshi reports contracts rather than cash. Its Super Bowl market shows about 67.1 million contracts traded with 57.1 million of open interest, and its MVP market about 9.1 million contracts. Those are a count of agreements, not a sum of money, so a Kalshi figure should never be read as a dollar total or held up against a Polymarket one as though the two were the same measurement.
It is a real difference in how the two exchanges describe themselves, and it is worth knowing before comparing any two figures across them.
