Kalshi built its inbox around football
Kalshi sent 193 campaigns from Aug 31 to Oct 25, against 27 in the same weeks a year ago, built around football: “$25 on us for Friday night football” and “Your NFL Sunday Schedule.” DraftKings answered with boosts, such as “66% of Winners Getting Extra Last Sunday = 66% Winnings Boost,” and with its own prediction market: “A welcome offer. $5 trade for $150 Bonuses.” The comparable 2025 window carried no prediction-market sends. FanDuel sent no 40%+ boosts, against 1.8M such emails a year ago.
DraftKings is discounting harder
Total volume ramped first, then the boosts. DraftKings went from 19–26M promotional emails a week in August to 31–39M after NFL kickoff. Of the 281.7M it sent in the eight weeks through Oct 25, 34.6M, or 12%, offered a payout boost of 40% or more, against 1% in the same weeks last year.
From kickoff offers to prediction markets
| Date | Subject line | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 9 | “NFL Week 1 Starts Tonight: Bet $5, Get $200 Paid in Bonuses!” | Kickoff welcome offer |
| Sep 10 | “Throw a 50% NFL Boost on the Barbie!” | First 50% boost of the season |
| Sep 26 | “Trade $5. Get $25 in Predictions Dollars when Texas scores 1+ point” | Kalshi's $25 hook, on DraftKings' own prediction market |
| Oct 11 | “66% of Winners Getting Extra Last Sunday = 66% Winnings Boost” | Deepest boost in the window |
| Oct 14 | “Choose up to a 60% Winnings Boost to use on Baseball Playoffs today!” | Boosts carried past football |
| Oct 20 | “Bet $5, Get $200 Paid in Bonuses + 3 Months of NBA League Pass!” | NBA tip-off welcome offer, sweetened |
How the others responded
| Brand | Promo emails | vs. 2025 | 40%+ boost emails |
|---|---|---|---|
| DraftKings | 281.7M | +14% | 34.6M (was 3.5M) |
| Kalshi | 137.6M | was 2.5M | 0.4M |
| FanDuel | 51.9M | −56% | 0 (was 1.8M) |
| BetMGM | 25.0M | n/a* | 0 indexed |
FanDuel led last year with “Triple Threat: You Have Three 50% Profit Boosts For Today's NFL Action!” This year it leads with “Football is BACK - Get $350 in Bonus Bets - Guaranteed when you bet $5+ for 7 days!” and fills the rest with casino and racing. BetMGM runs “Exclusive Offer: We'll Match Your Next Deposit!” every week alongside 100% odds-boost tokens, which the Random Walk steep index does not count.
*BetMGM panel coverage begins November 2025, so it has no prior-year comparison.
Signals from the Random Walk Promotional Ensemble, Aug 31 – Oct 25, 2026 vs the same weeks of 2025.
Any information and data provided is not intended to be used as the primary basis of investment decisions and nothing contained therein or conveyed in connection therewith is, or is intended to be, predictive of the movement of the market prices of the securities of the applicable company or companies. Random Walk Financial provides insights into promotional trends for brands and does not provide buy/sell/hold recommendations, price targets, valuation, technical insights or any other metric that could be used to forecast underlying securities. Random Walk is not a broker-dealer and does not engage in primary research of companies. Random Walk Financial insights and analysis are intended solely for consumption by institutional investors.
All analyses, research and metrics provided express our opinions and commentary derived from Random Walk analytic expertise, assumptions and use of the data collected. Such opinions may prove to be incomplete or substantially inaccurate and are inherently subject to significant risks and uncertainties beyond Random Walk Financial's control.
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