High Roller Technologies partners with Crypto.com to launch prediction markets in the U.S.

• High Roller Technologies (NYSE: ROLR) partnered with Crypto.com’s CDNA to offer event-based prediction contracts across finance, sports, and entertainment to U.S. customers.
• Kalshi reached a $22 billion valuation after raising roughly $1 billion, more than doubling its December valuation following a May 2025 court victory against the CFTC.
• Polymarket received a $1.6 billion commitment from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, toward a total $2 billion investment obligation.

• $1 trillion Projected annual U.S. prediction market trading volume if market fully matures
• $22 billion Kalshi’s current valuation after nine months of fundraising acceleration
• $25 million Capital High Roller raised in January 2025 to fund expansion and product development

High Roller Technologies, the publicly traded operator of the High Roller and Fruta casino brands, has signed an agreement with Crypto.com’s derivatives subsidiary CDNA to launch regulated prediction markets targeting U.S. customers.

The partnership will allow users to trade event-based contracts on outcomes spanning finance, sports, and entertainment through High Roller’s existing digital platform. CDNA, already registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission as both a designated contract market and derivatives clearing organization, will supply the contracts and infrastructure.

High Roller plans to register as a CFTC Introducing Broker and direct customer orders to Crypto.com’s CFTC-registered Futures Commission Merchant. The structure positions both parties within established regulatory frameworks rather than operating in legal gray zones that have shadowed parts of the crypto derivatives market.

High Roller Deploys $25 Million Capital Raise to Fund Market Entry

High Roller raised approximately $25 million through a direct share offering in January, selling roughly 1.9 million shares at $13.21 each. The placement, managed by ThinkEquity, closed on January 21 and provided the company with direct capital to fund marketing, expansion, product development, and operations.

This funding round, combined with the company’s January announcement that it had resolved a prior stockholders’ equity deficiency on the NYSE American, removes a significant technical obstacle to growth and signals institutional confidence in the prediction market strategy.

The casino operator’s entry into prediction markets represents a material diversification beyond its core online gaming business. High Roller CEO Seth Young said the company has spent months preparing for the launch, suggesting the Crypto.com partnership emerged from extended internal planning rather than a rushed opportunistic deal.

The company’s traditional gambling operations and existing customer base provide distribution advantages that pure-play crypto platforms do not possess, potentially allowing High Roller to reach retail users already comfortable with digital wagering but unfamiliar with cryptocurrency exchanges.

Crypto.com Co-Founder Marszalek Highlights Scalable Platform as Competitive Edge

Crypto.com co-founder and CEO Kris Marszalek framed the partnership as a method to expand regulated access to prediction contracts across a differentiated and scalable offering. The casino operator’s existing infrastructure and customer acquisition channels were the primary draw for the derivatives subsidiary, rather than any novel technological capability on High Roller’s part.

Together, we believe we can expand access to regulated event contracts in the United States through a differentiated and highly scalable offering.

Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of Crypto.com

The partnership agreement designates Crypto.com and its affiliates as the exclusive suppliers of prediction contracts across High Roller’s entire U.S. distribution network. This arrangement locks in Crypto.com’s derivatives arm as the underlying market operator while High Roller assumes the role of customer-facing broker and platform operator.

The deal creates new revenue channels for High Roller through spreads, commissions, and fees on customer trades, potentially offsetting competitive pressures in the mature online casino market.

Kalshi’s Court Victory and $22 Billion Valuation Reset Competitive Landscape

The prediction market space has attracted extraordinary capital velocity in recent months, driven partly by legal clarity emerging from regulatory disputes. Kalshi, a prediction market platform, reached a $22 billion valuation after closing a funding round of roughly $1 billion led by Coatue Management in early 2025.

This valuation represents a roughly 11-fold increase from the company’s $2 billion valuation less than a year prior, compressed into a nine-month period. The acceleration followed Kalshi’s May 2025 court victory against the CFTC, which granted the platform permission to offer election prediction contracts, a category the regulator had previously blocked.

That single court decision unlocked a major growth narrative for Kalshi investors, validating the business model and triggering a wave of venture backing from tier-one firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Ark Invest, and Paradigm.

Polymarket, a rival prediction market platform, closed a $1.6 billion investment commitment from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. ICE had initially valued Polymarket at $9 billion in October 2025 when it announced the investment commitment, which eventually reached $2 billion in total obligation.

The additional $600 million tranche brought ICE’s total deployment closer to completion, while ICE also committed to purchasing up to $40 million in Polymarket securities from existing shareholders. This institutional validation from a major U.S. exchange operator and derivatives marketplace signals that prediction markets are attracting structural capital beyond venture-stage investors.

Traditional Gambling Operators Enter Prediction Markets Amid Regulatory Clarity

High Roller’s entry into prediction markets through a CFTC-compliant structure reflects a broader trend of established gambling operators seeking exposure to crypto derivatives without assuming regulatory risk.

Analysts have projected that if prediction markets mature, U.S. annual trading volume could exceed $1 trillion, with global figures potentially higher. This forecast assumes significant adoption across retail and institutional users and resolution of remaining regulatory ambiguities around contract types and operator licensing.

High Roller’s partnership with Crypto.com positions the company to capture transaction volume and customer data as the market scales, while Crypto.com gains access to a distribution channel with hundreds of thousands of active gamblers.

The High Roller deal also represents a lower-risk entry strategy for traditional gambling companies compared to building prediction market infrastructure in-house. By partnering with an established crypto derivatives platform already registered with the CFTC, High Roller avoids the regulatory legwork and market development costs that pure-play entrants must absorb.

The arrangement mirrors similar partnerships between traditional finance firms and crypto platforms, where scale and regulatory compliance are outsourced to specialized operators.

High Roller plans to register as a CFTC Introducing Broker in the coming months and connect with Crypto.com’s registered Futures Commission Merchant, marking the expected operational launch window for the prediction market offering. The timing of that registration and the scope of event contracts made available in the initial launch will determine whether High Roller can compete with Kalshi and Polymarket, which have secured significantly larger funding pools and brand recognition among active prediction market traders.

Original reporting: cryptopolitan.com