Kalshi bets on World Cup push to boost trading before IPO

Kalshi is using the 2026 FIFA World Cup to widen its sports footprint as it edges toward an eventual public listing, linking prediction contracts to one of the biggest betting events in the American market. CEO Tarek Mansour said on CNBC on June 24 that the company is considering an IPO but not in 2026, putting any listing more likely in 2027 or 2028.

The timing matters because the tournament will be staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico, returning to the United States for the first time in 32 years. Kalshi has already raised about $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation, and reporting this month said it is now seeking a valuation near $40 billion in a new funding round. The World Cup campaign gives the company a way to show investors that prediction markets are not just a niche tool for election wagers, but a broader venue for trading on major cultural and sporting events.

On June 10, Kalshi announced an official partnership with the Argentine Football Association for the duration of the tournament. Argentina enters the World Cup as the reigning champion, giving Kalshi a tie to one of international soccer’s most visible national teams. A separate report said the arrangement includes co-branded marketing, social-media campaigns and Argentina national team branding, with verified sports statistics from Genius Sports used for market creation and settlement.

Kalshi deepened that effort on June 15 by naming Croatia captain and Ballon d’Or winner Luka Modrić as a featured global ambassador, alongside a separate Croatia partnership. The move broadened the company’s appeal beyond one national federation and pushed its brand closer to the kind of cross-promotional deals common in mainstream sports business.

The World Cup drive sits alongside Kalshi’s June 8 multi-year global data and infrastructure partnership with Sportradar, which points to the plumbing behind the product: the feeds, verification and market infrastructure needed to support event contracts at scale. That stack is increasingly central to how the company presents itself, as prediction markets gain traction around sports and politics and analysts say the 2026 World Cup could add billions of dollars in trading activity across regulated and decentralized exchanges. The result is a business that looks less like a regulatory edge case and more like a normalized part of the sports-betting ecosystem, even as it asks investors to value that growth at IPO scale.