Event contracts might seem like a niche product for sports fans or political junkies, but Wall Street is increasingly taking notice.
According to Simon Johansen, who leads Jump's prediction markets operations, the firm has hired "everyone from college students trading in their dorm rooms to people in their mid-30s who left corporate jobs."
The reason for the hiring spree is simple: the numbers are getting huge.
Polymarket odds currently give Spain a 58% chance of taking the trophy.
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The growth is not just a one-time spike. Trading volume for the 2026 Super Bowl was about ten times higher than the 2025 Super Bowl. "At the 2027 Super Bowl we're probably due for another 10X," Johansen said.
Jump Trading stands out as one of the first major market makers to dive into prediction markets, where users bet on outcomes in sports, politics, and economic data. As volume surges, the sector is starting to draw the same kind of institutional focus that earlier converted crypto from a loosely regulated digital frontier into a mainstream asset class.
Jump is not alone in taking them seriously. Susquehanna International Group, another large proprietary trading firm, was an early adopter as well.
Johansen sees prediction markets as something that is here to stay. He called them "probably the most AI-resistant industry that exists," pointing out that people will always want to watch and wager on sports. But the plan goes much wider than sports. "The way that we're building the business is that we want to be able to trade anything and everything where there's opportunity," he said.
To understand the scale of this growth, consider that just two years ago, total volume across all prediction platforms rarely exceeded a few billion dollars per month. Market makers like Jump and Susquehanna bring liquidity and tighter spreads, which in turn attracts retail and professional gamblers. The rapid expansion is not limited to Jump alone.
The influx of institutional liquidity has helped narrow spreads and attract a wider range of participants. As platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket gain traction, the volume surge is expected to continue, with the 2027 Super Bowl predicted to see another tenfold jump from the 2026 event. These market makers act as the backbone of the ecosystem, ensuring that bets can be placed quickly at competitive prices - a critical feature for both casual bettors and high-stakes traders. And with the 2027 Super Bowl expected to see a tenfold increase from the 2026 Super Bowl, the infrastructure for event contracts is rapidly evolving from niche to mainstream.
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