Platform review
DraftKings Predictions review
Standalone DraftKings prediction markets app trading on CFTC-regulated exchanges
In United States: DraftKings' own availability page (updated 2026-07-22) lists 48 states for Predictions, plus DC and US territories. Access depends on physical location and excludes tribal land. Sports markets vary by state; the breakdown is shown only as an image that could not be read. The official availability page and Predictions Terms returned 403.
Our verdict
Careful contract drafting, a genuine CFTC-designated exchange behind it, and one published rule the venue is visibly not following. Outcomes are determined by Railbird Exchange, LLC, now trading as DKeX, whose certifications name their source agency precisely and set out contingencies most venues leave vague: a 48-hour clock if the source does not report, and an explicit rule that corrections before expiration count and corrections after it do not.
The brokerage side checks out on the regulators’ own records — GUS III LLC, NFA ID 0571907, a registered Futures Commission Merchant since 14 July 2026 — and the CFTC vacated by amended order the provision that had barred exactly this brokered model, which is a supervised change rather than a workaround.
Against that: DKeX’s Rule 9.5(b) says it “will make public notice of the disciplinary action by posting on the Website”, and no such page exists. Its certifications defer the decisive parameters to “the Market Specifications”, a term its own rulebook never defines. And markets trade with no matching certification at all — one day’s settlement report carried hundreds of soccer contracts while the certification index contains no soccer certification.
Risk flags
- WatchLimited in 3 US states. Unavailable in ME, NH; restricted in PA — by the operator’s rule or a state order. What each state has done: Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania. State-by-state availability →
- WatchToo little documented to score. The operator’s documents settle 23% of our criteria by weight — below the 35% a headline score needs. How scoring works →
- WatchShort track record. Launched in 2025: little history of how it settles disputes or handles stress.
Flags are rules over the facts on record, the same for every platform — how they work.
Verified documents & product scope
Check country eligibility
Choose the country you want to check. This lookup does not change your site region or establish individual account approval.
Where is DraftKings Predictions available?
Availability depends on physical location and market category. The operator requires an eligible US state, Washington DC or US territory and excludes trading while on tribal land.
What fees does DraftKings Predictions charge?
DraftKings Predictions charges per contract, “per side (i.e., opening or closing a position)”, by contract price. On markets listed by Crypto.com Derivatives North America and DKeX (formerly Railbird) the fee runs from $0.0008 at 1¢ to $0.0200 between 30¢ and 94¢; on CME markets it is $0.01 from 1¢ to 19¢, $0.02 from 20¢ to 94¢ and $0.01 from 95¢.
“Total Fees include all applicable FCM commissions and Exchange Fees”, rounded up to the cent; DKeX charges no settlement fee (DraftKings fee schedule, archived 25 Sep 2026; railbirdexchange.com, read 2 Oct 2026).
These are document checks, not a funded-account test. Access may depend on residence, physical location, account approval and the contract category. Check the operator’s current terms before depositing.
Learn how play-money and real-money markets differ, use the fee and payout tools, or read our review methodology.
See our Platform documentation audit for the method and downloadable source register.
- Trading and market availability — checked
Physical presence in an eligible US location is required; tribal land is excluded. The map separates financial and sports availability, but the retrieved text did not expose a full state list.
- DraftKings Predictions standard pricing fee schedule (archived 25 Sep 2026) — checked
Per-side, per-contract fees by price for CDNA/DKeX and CME markets, including FCM commissions and exchange fees. The live page returned 403.
- DKeX fees and hours — checked
Exchange taker fee $0.0100 per contract from 3¢ to 98¢, maker $0.0025; no settlement fee.
Pros and cons
What works
- The most thorough per-contract contingency drafting of the US brokers — a named source agency, a 48-hour clock and an explicit revision rule
- Broker and exchange both verifiable on the regulators’ own records
- Specifications are fixed as of the first day of trading, so terms cannot move under an open position
- A flat $0.01 per-contract fee rather than a formula that peaks at the midpoint
- Certifications are openly fetchable with no login
What doesn’t
- Its own Rule 9.5(b) promises published disciplinary notices and no such page exists
- Certifications defer the decisive parameters to “the Market Specifications”, a term the rulebook never defines
- Markets trade with no matching certification — hundreds of soccer contracts settled on a day when no soccer certification exists
- Older generic certifications reserve an override “for any reason or no reason”
- The rulebook names no regulator as a customer remedy for a disputed outcome
- Every DraftKings web address blocks our fetcher, so we have never read a live contract page
Public website & interface
Dated website captures for identification and interface context. Displayed prices are historical; these images do not establish account eligibility or a funded-account test.
DraftKings Predictions official Google Play listing by DraftKings, Inc.; public page captured 16 September 2026, not a logged-in trading session · Source website · View full image
Prices and liquidity
We do not currently publish live quotes for DraftKings Predictions. Check the platform’s order book before placing an order: the last trade can differ from the price available for your position size.
How to assess liquidity and spreads →How DraftKings Predictions works
DraftKings Predictions is an app over a brokered route to a CFTC-designated exchange. The broker is GUS III LLC, trading as “DraftKings Predictions”, NFA ID 0571907, a registered Futures Commission Merchant and approved NFA member since 14 July 2026 with no regulatory actions on its record. The exchange is Railbird Exchange, LLC, which since a filing dated 26 May 2026 trades as DKeX.
One regulatory step is invisible in most coverage and worth recording. Railbird’s original designation order expressly forbade the model this product uses — it “may not permit any futures commission merchant to intermediate any transactions or carry accounts for customers” — and that provision was vacated by an Amended Order of Designation before the FCM registration took effect. The change was made by the regulator, on the record, rather than worked around.
Costs are flat rather than proportional: DraftKings’ own terms state a $0.01 transaction fee per contract bought or sold, plus a separate exchange fee. The fee is a larger share of the purchase price for low-priced contracts.
The contract drafting is the best of the US brokers
DKeX certifications name their source agency precisely rather than gesturing at one — “The Source Agency for this Contract is Major League Baseball, through its official statistics as published by MLB, including at MLB.com” — and 34 of them are openly fetchable with no login.
The contingencies are the part other venues leave vague. If the source does not report within 48 hours of the event concluding, the contract is referred to the Market Outcome Review Process and “may resolve to the last fair market price”. On revisions the rule is explicit in both directions: a correction before expiration is used for settlement, and “Any corrections or revisions made after Expiration shall not be considered”. A result the exchange judges clearly erroneous is referred to the same process, on a 72-hour clock.
Rule 13.1(h) also fixes specifications as of the first day of trading, so the terms cannot move under an open position — a protection that sounds obvious until you notice how many venues reserve the right to clarify a contract mid-life. Taken together this is the most complete contingency drafting of the five US brokers we cover, and it is the main reason this venue rates where it does on resolution despite being designated for barely fifteen months.
Three things that do not hold up
First, a rule the venue is not following. DKeX Rule 9.5(b) states that it “will make public notice of the disciplinary action by posting on the Website”. There is no such page. What is published is a settlement log covering a rolling twelve hours, which is a feed rather than a history.
Second, a term that decides your contract and is defined nowhere. The certifications defer the team, the threshold and the time period to “the Market Specifications” — a phrase that appears nowhere in the DKeX rulebook and has no findable location on the site. The parameters that determine whether you are paid are therefore one undefined cross-reference away from the reader.
Third, markets trading with no certification at all. One day’s public settlement report carried 120 EFLC, 102 UCL and 17 LIGAMX soccer tickers, and the certification index contains no soccer certification. Where an older generic certification does apply, it sets a priority waterfall — the governing body, then major media organisations, then official broadcasters — and reserves an override “in its sole and absolute discretion, for any reason or no reason”.
Recourse, and what we could not check
The rulebook provides mandatory arbitration between members before a Board of Arbitration, and sends claims against the exchange to DraftKings’ general counsel by courier. It contains no reference to CFTC reparations, to 17 CFR Part 12, or to NFA arbitration as a customer remedy — we searched for all three. Outcome determinations under Rule 7.1(c) are declared final with no documented appeal. Whether reparations are available as a matter of law is not a question DKeX’s documents answer, and it should not be inferred from their silence.
A limit on this review, stated rather than hidden: every draftkings.com and predictions.draftkings.com address returns HTTP 403 to our fetcher and is blocked to our browser tooling. We have never opened a live DraftKings contract page. Everything above comes from the exchange’s own filings, its rulebook, its certifications and the regulators’ registers — which is a stronger basis than marketing copy, but it means we cannot tell you what the app actually shows a logged-out visitor.
DraftKings Predictions FAQ
- Who decides the outcome of a DraftKings Predictions contract?
Not DraftKings. Contracts are listed by Railbird Exchange, LLC, trading as DKeX, and determined by its Outcome Review Committee, which the rulebook gives “full discretion” and whose determinations it declares final. The certifications name a source agency for each contract — Major League Baseball through its official statistics, for example — and set a 48-hour clock before a non-reporting source sends the contract to review. The rulebook names no regulator as a customer remedy for a disputed outcome.
- Are all DraftKings Predictions markets covered by a published certification?
No, and this is the clearest gap we found. On the day we checked, the public settlement report carried 120 EFLC, 102 UCL and 17 LIGAMX soccer tickers, while the certification index contained no soccer certification at all.
Where an older generic certification applies, it sets a priority order — the governing body, then major media organisations, then official broadcasters — and reserves an override “in its sole and absolute discretion, for any reason or no reason”. The certifications also defer the decisive parameters to “the Market Specifications”, a term that appears nowhere in the rulebook.
- What fees does DraftKings Predictions charge?
DraftKings Predictions charges per contract, “per side (i.e., opening or closing a position)”, by contract price. On markets listed by Crypto.com Derivatives North America and DKeX (formerly Railbird) the fee runs from $0.0008 at 1¢ to $0.0200 between 30¢ and 94¢; on CME markets it is $0.01 from 1¢ to 19¢, $0.02 from 20¢ to 94¢ and $0.01 from 95¢.
“Total Fees include all applicable FCM commissions and Exchange Fees”, rounded up to the cent; DKeX charges no settlement fee (DraftKings fee schedule, archived 25 Sep 2026; railbirdexchange.com, read 2 Oct 2026).
- Is DraftKings Predictions regulated?
DraftKings Predictions launched 19 December 2025 as a standalone mobile app and web product under the oversight of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The brokerage side is now verified from the regulators’ own records rather than described second-hand: the registered firm is GUS III LLC, trading as “DRAFTKINGS PREDICTIONS” and “DRAFTKINGS SPORTS”, NFA ID 0571907, at 222 Berkeley Street, Boston.
NFA BASIC shows it as a registered Futures Commission Merchant and “NFA Member Approved”, with FCM registration effective 14 July 2026 and its earlier introducing-broker registration withdrawn the same day, and no regulatory actions (read 9 September 2026). A second entity, GUS II LLC trading as “DRAFTKINGS PREDICT”, NFA ID 0565257, is at the same address and is registered in no category at all.
The exchange is Railbird Exchange, LLC, on the CFTC’s DCM register as “Designated”, 13 June 2025, and since a filing dated 26 May 2026 it trades as DKeX — “Railbird Exchange, LLC d/b/a DKeX”, a d/b/a rather than a legal-name change, so every CFTC record still carries the Railbird name and the register’s Remarks column has not been updated to mention DKeX.
One regulatory step is worth knowing because it is invisible in secondary reporting: the original designation order forbade exactly the brokered model this product uses — Railbird “may not permit any futures commission merchant to intermediate any transactions or carry accounts for customers” — and that provision was vacated by an Amended Order of Designation before the FCM registration took effect.
Event contracts were stated to be available across 38 states at launch, including sports event contracts in certain states such as California, Florida, Georgia and Texas. IMPORTANT: every draftkings.com and predictions.draftkings.com page returns HTTP 403 to our fetcher, so the DraftKings-sourced figures here come from a search index’s reading of DraftKings’ own pages, not from a page we read ourselves. Re-check each against the live page before publishing.
UNVERIFIED: the 38-state list, and the 21 October 2025 acquisition date — no CFTC or NFA document we read states an ownership relationship between DraftKings, Inc. and Railbird Exchange, LLC.
What the primary documents do show is the DKeX rulebook filed with the CFTC directing complaints to DraftKings’ general counsel at 222 Berkeley Street with a copy to legalnotices@draftkings.com, a compliance address at draftkings.com, and the DKeX site footer reading “© 2026 DraftKings”.
- Who can use DraftKings Predictions?
Availability depends on physical location and market category. The operator requires an eligible US state, Washington DC or US territory and excludes trading while on tribal land.
- Does DraftKings Predictions require identity verification (KYC)?
Yes. Requires an account with DraftKings’ CFTC-registered introducing broker subsidiary. The exact identity-verification requirements are not verified.
- Does DraftKings Predictions have a mobile app?
Yes. DraftKings Predictions has apps for iOS and Android.
- What can you trade on DraftKings Predictions?
Event contracts on sports, economics and crypto. Individual markets open and close, so check the live list before depositing.
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