Underdog’s in-house prediction exchange UDX has recorded its first seven-figure trading day, with $1.2m in notional volume changing hands on 27 July – just 10 days after the platform processed its initial test trades.
Figures published on UDX’s own market-data feed, and first highlighted by InGame, show the exchange reached the $1.2m mark on Monday, 27 July. The performance came nine days after Underdog publicly confirmed the launch of its wholly owned venue, signalling a rapid start for a platform that has been live for less than a fortnight.
Although the early volumes indicate UDX has avoided the typical “cold start” that affects many new trading venues, the exchange is still responsible for only a relatively small share of Underdog’s wider prediction-market activity.
Small share of a much larger business
Underdog chief executive Jeremy Levine told CNBC on 17 July that the company is targeting $4.4bn in prediction-market volume for 2026. Spread evenly, that projection implies an average of about $22.2m in daily flow across all platforms where Underdog routes trades.
Measured against that benchmark, UDX’s $1.2m notional volume on 27 July represents roughly 5.4% of Underdog’s estimated average daily prediction-market activity.
That figure is only an approximation rather than a precise snapshot of how customer orders were distributed on the day. Two main factors pull the estimate in opposite directions.
On one side, Underdog’s late-July trading is likely higher than the simple annual daily average because Levine identified the World Cup as a major driver of activity. If that is the case, UDX’s true share of Underdog’s daily business on 27 July would be lower than 5.4%.
On the other side, UDX’s early trading has been concentrated in straightforward Major League Baseball contracts. Underdog’s broader volume figures include third-party venues where more complex combination products are already live, meaning a like-for-like comparison is not available.
To calculate an exact market-share figure for UDX, Underdog would need to disclose how much 27 July customer flow was routed through each of UDX, Kalshi and Crypto.com’s Derivatives North America exchange, commonly known as Nadex.
Regulatory groundwork and early listings
When UDX’s first trades went through on 17 July, the exchange had already self-certified seven baseball and basketball contract templates with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Those filings, submitted in mid-July, set out a planned launch date but did not by themselves confirm that public trading had started.
The contracts are structured as prediction markets, with notional volume counting both sides of each trade. That means the $1.2m figure reflects total contract exposure rather than the actual cash staked by customers, often referred to as handle.
The CFTC also signed off on UDX’s initial market-maker programme on 2 July. That approval allowed designated firms to quote prices from the outset, providing liquidity for users as soon as the exchange opened its order book.
Underdog later self-certified parlay-style contracts for UDX in a CFTC filing dated 27 July, indicating that combination markets could begin listing as soon as 29 July. Similar products already make up an estimated 30% to 40% of daily volume on Kalshi, suggesting that once UDX parlays go live, the exchange’s headline numbers may rise both because of the new product mix and any transfer of customer activity from rival venues.
Existing infrastructure softens new-venue challenges
Underdog has entered the exchange business with advantages that many start-up venues lack. Before acquiring Aristotle Exchange’s designated contract market and clearing house from PredictIt in March, the company had already been offering customers access to prediction markets via Crypto.com and Kalshi for several months.
In addition, Underdog operates a registered futures commission merchant. This structure allows the company to hold client accounts and route orders internally, keeping brokerage and exchange functions within the same corporate group.
That combination of an existing user base, regulatory approvals and a pre-built market-maker scheme appears to have helped UDX sidestep the classic problem faced by new platforms, where traders are needed to supply liquidity but liquidity is required to attract traders. By placing UDX inside an app that prediction-market customers were already using, Underdog ensured the venue did not launch with an empty order book.
Multi-venue strategy remains in place
Despite bringing trading in-house through UDX, Underdog has not severed its ties with external exchanges. The company’s current customer documentation still treats UDX, Kalshi and Crypto.com/Nadex as separate providers and makes clear that “settlement can depend” on which venue lists a particular contract.
The language underlines that Underdog is pursuing a multi-venue strategy in which it directly controls some listings while continuing to route certain customers or products to third-party platforms.
This distinction is important when interpreting Underdog’s broader volume claims. Levine has said the company has processed $6.49bn in prediction-market flow since entering the sector in September 2025. However, the overwhelming majority of that total predates the launch of UDX and was executed on outside exchanges rather than on Underdog’s own venue.
As a result, the $6.49bn figure reflects Underdog’s scale as an intermediary, not the performance of UDX itself.
Following a path taken by DraftKings and Polymarket
Underdog’s move into operating its own CFTC-regulated exchange follows a pattern established by other firms in the prediction-market and derivatives space.
DraftKings launched its DKeX platform in June, using a CFTC licence obtained through its acquisition of Railbird Technologies and drawing a line under its previous reliance on CME Group and Crypto.com. Polymarket US self-certified its own parlay-style contracts in May, while both DraftKings and Robinhood have since increased the proportion of trading routed through their in-house venues during their respective launch periods.
For Underdog, the broader commercial test is whether it can shift a significant slice of what it estimates to be more than $20m in average daily prediction-market flow away from external partners and on to UDX.
The early $1.2m notional day on 27 July shows the new exchange has quickly secured some traction. The next phase will reveal how much of Underdog’s overall business it can ultimately capture as parlays come online and customers choose between its own venue and established rivals.
