Sportradar grew third-quarter revenue by 24% to €362.5m, with its US business expanding 47% as prediction market operators became a material source of demand for its data and content.

The Swiss sports technology group said adjusted EBITDA rose 21% to €102m in the three months to 30 September, a margin of 28.2%. Profit for the period increased 20% to €27m, despite a €6m foreign exchange loss, €4m of higher financing costs linked to additional sports rights and severance payments from cost-efficiency measures.

“Sportradar delivered another strong quarter of double-digit growth, once again demonstrating the value of our role as a key technology and content partner to the global sports ecosystem,” chief executive Carsten Koerl said.

Prediction markets in the numbers

US revenue reached €98.0m, up from €66.6m a year earlier, and accounted for 27% of group revenue against 23% in the prior-year quarter. Sportradar attributed the growth to market expansion, including prediction market growth, and customer uptake of its premium content.

The company said it had expanded its partnership with Polymarket to more than 20 leagues and competitions, including the Bundesliga, Euroleague Basketball and the tennis Grand Slams, and signed new agreements with prediction market makers and brokers. It added that affiliate marketing spend by prediction market customers had contributed to growth in its marketing and media services.

Betting Technology and Solutions revenue rose 27% to €296.7m. Within that, betting and gaming content grew 37% to €242.0m, while managed betting services slipped 3% to €54.7m as lower trading margins from unfavourable sports results offset higher turnover.

The Sports Content, Technology and Services segment grew 11% to €65.8m, with integrity services up 16% and sports performance down 8%.

Over the first nine months of the year, group revenue rose 18% to €1,086.8m and Betting Technology and Solutions revenue increased 21% to €897.9m. During the quarter Sportradar also extended its data and audiovisual betting rights agreement with Euroleague Basketball through 2031.

Cash, buybacks and Atrium

Operating cash flow rose 37% to €157m and free cash flow increased 12% to €73m. Sportradar repurchased US$157m of shares in the quarter, completing its enhanced US$250m open-market programme. Cash stood at €190m at the end of September, down from €365m at the end of 2025, and the group has no debt outstanding.

Since the start of its buyback plan, Sportradar said it had bought back 34 million shares for US$519m as of 30 October, including US$408m in 2026, against a total authorisation of US$1bn.

The results include Atrium Sports, the coaching and scouting business of Synergy Sports, which Sportradar agreed to sell to Teamworks for US$170m in October. The sale is expected to close in the fourth quarter, subject to customary conditions.

Outlook unchanged

Sportradar reiterated its 2026 guidance, which excludes Atrium. It expects constant currency revenue growth of 19% to 21%, equivalent to €1,518m to €1,533m at current exchange rates, and adjusted EBITDA growth of 24% to 27%, or €360m to €368m. It said the outlook would be updated if necessary once the Atrium sale closes.

The quarter puts numbers on a shift that has been visible across the sector for months. As exchanges such as Kalshi and Polymarket list a widening range of sports contracts, the official data and content they need has become a growth line for suppliers, at the same time as the large sportsbook operators are cutting their own outlooks to fund prediction market launches. Sportradar’s next test will be whether that demand holds as federal and state regulators continue to contest how far event contracts can go.

DraftKings has cut its full-year 2026 guidance after third-quarter revenue fell short of analyst expectations, with the bulk of the reduction driven by a larger investment in its prediction markets business.

The Boston-based operator reported revenue of about $1.33bn for the three months to 30 September, up 16% year on year but below the roughly $1.39bn analysts had forecast, according to Associated Press and Bloomberg. It posted a net loss of $468.7m, or $0.94 per share, and an adjusted loss of $0.53 per share.

Guidance reset

DraftKings now expects 2026 revenue of $6.35bn to $6.55bn, down from a previous range of $6.5bn to $6.9bn. Adjusted EBITDA guidance was cut more sharply, to $175m to $275m from $700m to $900m.

The company said the revised EBITDA range includes adjusted EBITDA investment in Predictions of $650m to $700m, and Bloomberg reported that the new outlook primarily reflects the increase in that spending.

Shares fell about 19% in extended trading on Thursday from a close of $23.52, according to Bloomberg.

At the midpoints, the changes take $250m off expected revenue and cut the adjusted EBITDA forecast from $800m to $225m. The adjusted loss per share of $0.53 also compared with a consensus estimate of a $0.39 loss cited by Benzinga.

Spending rose sharply in the quarter. Sales and marketing expense increased 68% year on year to about $605.7m, according to analyst coverage of the results.

A bet on 2027

Management used the results to set out its first view of 2027, guiding to revenue of $7.35bn to $7.75bn. That is split between $6.7bn to $7.0bn from the core sportsbook and iGaming business and $650m to $750m from Predictions.

Adjusted EBITDA for 2027 is guided at $800m to $1bn, including a further $250m to $350m of Predictions investment. Bloomberg said analysts had been expecting around $1.12bn.

“The third quarter marked a pivotal moment for DraftKings, as the Predictions offering we have been building is now powering meaningful growth for our business,” chief executive Jason Robins said, adding that the company believes it is “set up for an exceptional 2027”.

Robins said more than 1.6 million customers have engaged with DraftKings Predictions in 2026. In the core business, monthly unique payers rose 13% to 4.1 million, while average revenue per monthly unique payer increased 3% to $109.

Prediction markets reshape the US majors

The results underline how quickly prediction markets have moved from side project to the main driver of capital allocation at the largest US operators. DraftKings is spending heavily to build share in event contracts, which it can offer in states where it does not hold a sportsbook licence, at a time when regulators are still fighting over whether those products are gambling at all.

That regulatory risk has already cost it reach. DraftKings was one of three operators that pulled prediction market products from Utah this month, and the CFTC has since told exchanges to stop geofencing states, which could force further decisions about where the product is offered.

Rival Flutter also reduced its outlook this week, trimming 2026 guidance as its Brazil exit and sports results weighed on the third quarter. Investors will now be looking for evidence that DraftKings’ Predictions spending converts into durable revenue rather than simply buying volume, with the 2027 guidance the benchmark against which that will be judged.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has told designated contract markets (DCMs) to stop blocking customers by state within 30 days, a move that strikes at the geofencing prediction market operators have used to manage legal fights with state gambling regulators.

In an interpretation published on 5 November, the Commission said the requirement in Regulation 38.151(b) that DCMs provide “competitive, open, fair, and impartial access” to members and persons with trading privileges is incompatible with domestic geographic restrictions.

“Derivatives markets must operate on a uniform basis at a national scale in order to achieve the purposes set out in the Commodity Exchange Act,” said CFTC Chairman Michael Selig. “Geographic access restrictions are inconsistent with those purposes and the Act’s impartial access requirements.”

Thirty days to comply or explain

Under the interpretation, DCMs must cease domestic geographic restrictions that breach the impartial access requirements within 30 days, or submit an explanation to the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight setting out why compliance is not feasible.

The obligation reaches beyond the exchanges themselves. Within the same 30-day window, DCMs are expected to ensure that intermediaries accessing their markets are not impeding, and are complying with, the exchange’s impartial access requirements, again with the option of filing an explanation instead. The Commission said it would consider the facts and circumstances of any particular case in connection with potential action.

That second limb matters for the sportsbook operators that have moved into event contracts through brokerage arrangements with CFTC-registered exchanges. Trade press reports on the interpretation named FanDuel and Fanatics among the intermediaries likely to be affected, and Law360 reported the move as a directive to stop geo-blocking users.

Collision course with the states

Until now the CFTC had not read the impartial access principle as applying to geography within the US. That gave platforms room to switch off sports contracts in individual states where courts or regulators had found them to be unlicensed gambling, while keeping them live elsewhere.

Geofencing has been the industry’s main pressure valve in recent weeks. DraftKings, FanDuel and Fanatics pulled their prediction market products from Utah at the start of this month after the state escalated its campaign against event contracts, and the Second Circuit this week refused to halt state enforcement against Kalshi and Coinbase while their appeal proceeds.

Commentators quickly flagged the bind the interpretation creates. Where a state court has ordered a platform to stop offering contracts to its residents, removing the geofence could put the operator in breach of that order, and sportsbook operators holding state licences could put those licences at risk by serving residents of states that regard the contracts as illegal betting. The comply-or-explain mechanism appears designed to absorb at least some of those cases, but the CFTC has not said what explanation it would accept.

Part of a wider federal push

The interpretation is the latest step in an increasingly assertive federal effort to establish the CFTC as the sole regulator of exchange-listed event contracts. Last month the Commission and the Department of Justice sued Utah to block its crackdown on prediction markets, arguing that the Commodity Exchange Act pre-empts state gambling law in this field.

Requiring nationwide access sharpens that pre-emption argument. If exchanges are obliged under federal rules to serve every state on equal terms, platforms facing state enforcement can argue that the conflict is between state law and a federal requirement, not merely a commercial choice to operate.

The 30-day clock points to early December as the deadline for exchanges either to switch geofenced states back on or to file their explanations. State regulators and tribal gaming interests, many of which are already in litigation over sports event contracts, are likely to treat the interpretation as a fresh front in that dispute.