Polymarket Testing Parlays, er Combos, Ahead of Football Season

Polymarket U.S. is beta testing combination bets, also known as combos, ahead of the start of the 2026 football season.

The prediction market operator refers to the combined contract wagers as Combinatorial Athletic Outcome Contracts, or CAOCs. Polymarket filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to self-certify combos — prediction market parlance for parlays — in May. That’s the same month in which the company commenced its phased rollout in the U.S.

Under the CFTC self-certification process, prediction market operators file plans with the regulator to offer new event contracts, declaring go-live dates. If the regulator doesn’t object or get involved in some way, companies can bring forth fresh event contracts or combos with minimal interference.

Still, it took Polymarket about 10 weeks to start beta testing of its CAOCs in the U.S. By some accounts, combos, in quiet fashion, on Polymarket U.S. have accounted for nearly 16,200 trades and north of $7.4 million in volume this month. Polymarket currently allows traders to combine up to 10 legs in a single wager.

Polymarket Combo Foray Is an Important Step

Polymarket’s push into combos or parlays is important on multiple fronts. Multi-leg bets account for a significant percentage of prediction volume in the U.S., but in a report out earlier this month, Eilers & Krejcik Gaming (EKG) analyst Brad Allen points out that one company – not Polymarket – controls nearly all of the U.S. market for prediction market sports parlays.

Competitors remain undaunted. As Allen points out, DraftKings, Fanatics, FanDuel and Underdog, among others, are ramping up prediction market combo efforts, indicating that they believe that the stranglehold possessed by one company on sports event contract combos can be disrupted.

In a recent report, Stifel analyst Jeffrey Stantial points out that U.S. prediction volume climbed to $49 billion last month with sports and combos, which are essentially all sports, accounting for approximately 80% of total transactions.

Understanding Polymarket Parlay Plumbing

Combos on Polymarket function differently than what bettors and traders see on traditional sportsbooks and other prediction markets for that matter.

When building a multi-leg bet, a Polymarket trader must send a request-for-quote (RFQ) that a market maker responds to in a specific amount of time. Traders must use Polymarket’s Application Programming Interface (API) technology to be able to take the “no” side of some or all of the legs in the combo.

Payouts on Polymarket are similar to what parlay bettors find on sportsbooks. Say a bettor or trader constructs a 10-leg combo. They need all 10 legs to resolve in their favor to win.