Polymarket cuts job and workforce as competition heats up in prediction market industry

Polymarket has confirmed that it has laid off full-time staff and stopped working with many contractors as part of changes across the company. The cuts come as it falls behind rival Kalshi and considers selling shares to the public in 2027.

New York-based Polymarket confirmed the job cuts after an internal email about the layoffs was shared on X last week. More than half of those let go were contractors, a person familiar with the cuts told Reuters.

Polymarket did not say how many people were let go or how much of its workforce was affected. It also refused to share the total number of employees and contractors working for the company.

The company confirmed on November 11 that a screenshot making the rounds online was real. That email, described internally as a company-wide reduction in force, ended one contractor agreement effective November 4.

Posts shared widely online claimed the layoffs were much larger. One post from November 4 said Polymarket had cut 30% of its workforce after the midterm elections. Another post on November 7 repeated the claim and said “laptops, email, and building access were cut on the spot.”

However, a source said the email was sent only to contractors, not full-time employees.

Leadership changes behind the layoffs

Polymarket said the job cuts were part of changes it was making as the company grows.

“As we’ve grown and brought on new leadership, we’ve reorganized to set the company up for its next phase of growth, which has meant a lot of new hires, changes in personnel and letting some people go,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The marketing team faced the biggest cuts. Matthew Modabber, the company’s former chief marketing officer and a longtime friend of CEO Shayne Coplan, was fired in October after an internal investigation.

His team was accused of making a fake website that looked like Polymarket. Paid influencers allegedly used the site to record videos showing trades that never actually happened.

Coplan initially opposed Modabber’s firing, but the board reportedly believed he could hurt the company’s plans to go public.

Former Uber executive Travis VanderZanden has since taken over marketing as chief growth officer.

Polymarket also made several senior hires. In September, it named former Amazon CFO Warren Jenson as its first finance chief. It also hired former Goldman Sachs executive Lisa Mantil to attract more large financial firms and former Meta executive Malea Otranto to lead trust and safety.

Polymarket falls behind Kalshi despite rising revenue

Polymarket was once the largest prediction market platform, but Kalshi has now moved ahead. Kalshi handled 73% of all prediction market trading in the third quarter. This was way higher compared to about 18% for Polymarket, according to a report from Predicted cited by Front Office Sports.

Kalshi has also signed major deals, including one linked to the FIFA World Cup. In late October, it raised $1 billion from investors in a round led by Sequoia and Wellington, bringing its value to $40 billion.

On November 10, Polymarket told CNBC that its revenue had reached a yearly pace of more than $1.8 billion, up from over $1 billion in June. Most of that growth came from its regulated US platform. The platform reopened in December 2025 after nearly four years out of the American market.

Polymarket is also close to raising another $1 billion in a funding round led by Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital. The deal would value the company at around $21 billion, sources told Front Office Sports.

Intercontinental Exchange, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, has put more than $1.6 billion into Polymarket. It owns about 14% of the company, worth around $2 billion as of September 30, according to an SEC filing.

“It’s not like a struggle for cash or something,” one source said about the layoffs.

Polymarket still faces legal problems

Polymarket is making these changes as it prepares for a possible stock market listing as early as 2027. Two sources said the company wants to improve how it is run before going public.

However, the company still faces questions from US regulators.

Reuters reported that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating whether Polymarket broke a 2022 agreement that required it to stop US users from accessing its main overseas platform.

Polymarket is based in New York but also runs a separate company registered in Panama. Its international platform has also faced criticism over some of the events people could bet on.

The prediction market platform recently removed a betting market that allowed users to predict whether men accused of raping a Cornell University student would face felony charges.

In April, the US Justice Department charged a soldier accused of using private information to place bets on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. In May, prosecutors also charged a Google engineer who allegedly made more than $1.2 million betting on who would be the most searched person of 2025.