Bryson DeChambeau becomes Kalshi’s first athlete partner

• Deal with DeChambeau includes TV commercial, social media posts, live appearances and promotions.
• Prediction market exchanges growing in popularity in the US but face legal and regulatory pressure.

Bryson DeChambeau has penned an endorsement deal with Kalshi, becoming the first athlete to sign with a prediction market platform.

The pact includes a TV commercial, social media posts, live appearances and promotions, as well as the launch of markets on events in which DeChambeau plays, according to Front Office Sports (FOS).

Golf has proven to be a hit for Kalshi in terms of volume in 2025, with US$456 million in total traded on the sport. While LIV Golf star and two-time major winner DeChambeau is the first athlete to partner with Kalshi, the platform had already inked deals at the league level with the likes of the National Hockey League (NHL), the Pro Padel League (PPL) and the Pro Pickleball Association (PPA).

In December 2025, the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks became the first sports team in North America to partner with Kalshi.

DeChambeau, meanwhile, has been open to partnering with new and emerging platforms. In 2020, he became the first active pro golfer to team up with gambling giant DraftKings and announced a set of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) the following year. As well as those, the US$10 million purse for the 32-year-old’s match with Brooks Koepka against Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler at the end of 2024 was paid in cryptocurrency.

The Kalshi deal comes in the same week that DeChambeau, along with Jon Rahm and Cam Smith, committed themselves to LIV after the PGA Tour offered them a way back from the Saudi breakaway league. Though LIV did see five-time major winner Koepka quit last month and rejoin the PGA Tour, the firm says it remains committed to its vision for golf and believes its franchises could soon all be worth US$1 billion.

The signing of DeChambeau adds further legitimacy to Kalshi, which counts Donald Trump Jr as a strategic adviser and is one of several platforms benefiting from the rising popularity of prediction markets in the US.

Prediction market exchanges such as Kalshi and Polymarket operate under federal commodities and derivatives regulation rather than traditional state gambling laws, allowing them to offer financial contracts tied to sports games and other real-world events. Their growing popularity presents a competitive threat to established gambling operators, who can’t operate in US states where sports betting remains illegal.

As a result, gambling giant FanDuel launched its own prediction markets product last November, with DraftKings doing the same the following month. Flutter expects to invest as much as US$350 million as it rolls out the new FanDuel Predicts app, according to Bloomberg.

Despite Kalshi’s rise, the platform faces mounting legal and regulatory pressure, including more than a dozen lawsuits. A class-action lawsuit in November accused Kalshi of operating an unlicensed sports gambling platform that misleads customers into thinking they’re getting fairer odds than traditional sportsbooks when that isn’t the case.

Credit: https://www.sportspro.com/news/sponsorship-marketing/bryson-dechambeau-kalshi-endorsement-deal-prediction-markets-january-2026/