Esports Prediction Market to Close as Kalshi and Polymarket Expand
Forkast is shutting down its prediction market platform, marking the end of one of the few trading venues dedicated to esports, as the focus shifts to Kalshi and Polymarket.
In an announcement made on October 12, the company stated that users can withdraw their funds until 11:59 p.m. UTC on November 9. Automated trading will pause on October 15, and any markets set to conclude after November 9 will be canceled and refunded. A notice on the Forkast website encourages users to withdraw their balances before the deadline.
This closure coincides with a major event on Forkast’s calendar. The 2026 League of Legends World Championship kicks off on October 15, the same day automated trading ceases, with the finals scheduled for November 14 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, just days after the platform shuts down. As a result, outright markets for the tournament winner will be refunded instead of resolved.
The reason for the closure has not been disclosed. The company reported processing over $100 million in volume across 1.6 million trades, with more than 10,000 registered traders and over 1,000 trading agents. These figures are self-reported and have not been independently verified.
This shutdown concludes a brief and frequently adjusted operation.
Forkast was developed by Community Gaming, a New York-based esports tournament platform that, as previously noted, laid off around 17 employees in 2023. At that time, the company had raised $18.5 million from various investors. Forkast launched on the Ronin blockchain in early 2025, featuring staking rewards tied to its CGX token.
However, this model was short-lived. In November 2025, Forkast announced its transition to Arbitrum, an Ethereum layer-2 network, alongside a strategic investment from Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, the details of which were not disclosed. “Prediction markets live or die by speed and liquidity,” said Forkast CEO Chris Gonsalves in the announcement. Reports indicated that Forkast discontinued support for CGX during this transition and burned the token’s supply after its price plummeted post-launch.
For most of its time on Arbitrum, Forkast operated without fees. According to the platform’s fee documentation, it ran a zero-fee promotion from December 2025 through July 2026. The standard fee structure included a 0.5% charge on sell orders that matched existing orders and a 0.25% fee on withdrawals. Thus, fee-based trading only occurred for about two and a half months before the shutdown notice.
The platform also sought partnerships within the esports industry. A partnership with a data provider was established in February to integrate live match data into Forkast’s markets.
The strategy aimed to attract users that larger platforms were missing. In February, Gonsalves mentioned that the U.S. prediction market was becoming “saturated” and that Forkast would focus on esports fans outside the U.S., highlighting team members in Brazil and Argentina.
However, both countries soon took action against prediction markets. In March, a Buenos Aires court ordered the blocking of Polymarket nationwide due to unauthorized gambling. In April, Brazil’s National Monetary Council prohibited event contracts related to sports, politics, and entertainment, affecting foreign platforms serving Brazilian users, including Polymarket and Kalshi. Forkast was not included in that list, but by July, its terms of service stated that the company “does not conduct on-the-ground marketing or solicitation in Brazil or Argentina” and that the platform “is not directed to persons located in Brazil, Argentina.”
Brazil escalated its actions further. A provisional decree issued on September 25 banned online betting entirely, with sites required to go offline by October 6. Forkast’s shutdown notice, issued six days later, did not reference either country, although it expressed pride in having “helped bring prediction markets to esports fans in emerging markets.”
The competitive landscape Forkast was part of had expanded significantly.
Reports indicated that users traded over $1.2 billion on esports through Polymarket in the year leading up to July 30, slightly surpassing the $1 billion traded on Kalshi. In the 30 days prior to that report, Kalshi users traded over $344 million on esports, a significant increase from $113 million in April, with League of Legends and Counter-Strike 2 driving most of the activity. Forkast’s total trading volume over approximately 20 months was less than Kalshi’s reported volume for that single month.
Activity on Forkast itself was relatively low. On October 13, the day after the announcement, esports match markets on the Forkast homepage showed trading volumes ranging from $32 to $605. The highest-volume market, for the winner of the 2026 LCK, recorded $4.5 million.
The reasons behind the closure remain unclear, including whether the regulatory actions in Brazil and Argentina played a role, the future of Community Gaming beyond Forkast, the fate of its staff, the size of the investment from Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, the contribution of automated agents to the reported $100 million volume, and the status of the data agreement with the partner.
With Forkast’s exit, esports prediction trading is now primarily concentrated in Kalshi and Polymarket. The broader question for publishers, teams, and data providers is whether a game-specific prediction market can maintain liquidity once general-purpose exchanges start listing the same matches.
