By Nick Devor

Polymarket has signed an exclusive partnership with Liga MX, the most popular soccer league in North America, furthering the prediction market's presence in international soccer ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The companies will announce the deal on Thursday.

"Polymarket is at a real growth inflection point and the biggest global sporting event is happening simultaneously," says Ari Borod, the firm's president of sports business development. "The timing is perfect."

Liga MX is dominant in North American soccer, both by talent and TV ratings.

"Liga MX was the most-watched soccer league on U.S. television in 2025," according to a recent Nielsen report, ahead of American Major League Soccer and the European Premier League.

As for the World Cup, Nielsen wrote that "Hispanic audiences will be the most engaged segment, with 81% of first- and second-generation Hispanic fans planning to engage via mobile and social during the tournament."

Polymarket has an advantage there: U.S. states with the highest Hispanic populations, namely Texas and California, have yet to legalize traditional sports betting. Prediction markets like Polymarket will be the only game in town for local bettors.

Polymarket has a data sharing partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of Barron's.

Sports are big business for prediction markets, and soccer is the number-one sport outside of the U.S. Polymarket's international platform has seen $5.4 billion in soccer trading volume over the past year, the company says, though sports weren't always a top priority.

"Polymarket's origins were really focused on financial markets and politics," Borod says, but "there's real demand for being able to trade on sporting outcomes. So we have shifted more focus to that."

Polymarket and its closest competitor, Kalshi, have raced to partner with professional sports leagues over the past year. The National Hockey League has a joint partnership with both prediction markets, but Polymarket has locked in exclusive deals with the U.S.'s Major League Baseball and Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Ahead of the World Cup kickoff this week, Polymarket has exclusive partnerships with soccer leagues across the globe: La Liga in Spain, Serie A in Italy, MLS in the U.S., and now Liga MX in Mexico.

"We think it's critical to partner with the people on whom we're offering markets," Borod says. "It will allow us to create a better product for our customers, and one that's steeped in integrity."

Integrity in sports competitions and prediction market trading has been a hot topic this year as allegations of fixed basketball games and insider trading on military operations have made headlines. Borod says that Polymarket won't offer Liga MX markets that raise integrity concerns, and that access to official league data allows for real-time trading surveillance.

Included in Thursday's announcement is Genius Sports, the sports data and integrity-monitoring firm.

"We're proud to support this partnership by providing the official data and integrity infrastructure that helps power transparent, trusted prediction markets around Liga MX competitions," Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke said in a press release.

Genius will also provide Polymarket the data it needs to settle Liga MX markets for its U.S. platform, the company says. Polymarket's cryptocurrency-based market resolution system will remain in place for the markets on its international platform.

The World Cup will be a betting bonanza, but may mark a peak for the business of sports betting in the U.S., as Barron's reported in a recent cover story. Shares of firms like DraftKings and FanDuel-parent Flutter have dropped precipitously this year amid competition from prediction markets and declining wagers. Even as they've launched their own prediction-market platforms to compete, sportsbooks say prediction markets' sports event contracts are inferior to their offerings.

"We're still in the early innings," Borod retorts. "The amount of product advances that are going to happen in the prediction-markets space -- there's a huge opportunity to close that product gap."

Prediction-market firms achieved massive growth and cultural salience in the U.S. through major events like the presidential election and Super Bowl. The World Cup marks their largest opportunity yet to prove they have global staying power.

Write to Nick Devor at nicholas.devor@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 11, 2026 09:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.