Polymarket and Kalshi take their prediction market rivalry to NYC grocery aisles

New Yorkers lined up outside Westside Market in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, phones out, watching staff scan carts like it was a normal grocery run. The difference was the bill.

Kalshi, a US-regulated prediction market company, said it would cover up to $50 per shopper at the store’s 84 3rd Ave location, running the giveaway from noon to 3 p.m. local time. The company shared photos from the scene and said the store would stay open a little longer for people still in line. 

Kalshi said its guest list showed 1,795 sign-ups for the event, while videos posted online suggested the line stretched for blocks. The giveaway doubles as brand marketing. Kalshi’s promos typically funnel attention back to its core product: trading contracts on real-world outcomes, from sports results to macro data releases.

Polymarket, its largest onchain competitor, used the same news cycle to announce a bigger swing. The company said it signed a lease for “The Polymarket,” describing it as a fully free grocery store that will open in New York City on Feb. 12 at noon ET and run through Feb. 15. Polymarket also said it donated $1 million to Food Bank For NYC.

Behind the groceries is a race for attention in a category that has exploded in size. Cointelegraph said Polymarket and Kalshi now regularly push combined daily volume above $400 million, roughly four times higher than this time last year. You can track the back-and-forth on the Artemis prediction markets dashboards. 

The marketing push has gotten louder as the platforms sign mainstream distribution deals. Polymarket teamed up with Dow Jones in January, while Kalshi has worked with CNN and CNBC. The platforms also ran into a visibility limit on broadcast TV: prediction market ads were barred during the Feb. 8 Super Bowl, which likely made street-level promotions even more appealing.

For now, the grocery giveaways act as a live demo for a product many people still have not tried. The bigger question is whether this kind of public momentum translates into long-term users, especially as regulators and state officials keep a closer eye on how prediction markets operate in the US.