Why Most Prediction Markets Don't Send a 1099

Do Prediction Markets Report to the IRS?

Not your contract results, at most venues. What the IRS does receive is everything around them. Kalshi's help center lists a 1099-INT for interest, a 1099-MISC for credits and rewards, a 1099-B for "crypto transfers" and a 1099-DA for digital assets from ZeroHash, each only to members who cross an IRS threshold. Its SSN article (dated August 25, 2026) says your Social Security number is used "only for identity verification and required tax reporting". So the IRS can hold a form showing you have a Kalshi account. What none of those forms carries is your trading profit or loss: Kalshi's account Documents page says Kalshi "does not report profits/losses to the IRS" (checked October 8, 2026).

Here is where each venue we checked stands, by its own documents. Every venue, form by form, is on prediction market tax forms, and each of the main venues has its own page: Kalshi tax forms, Robinhood event contract forms, Polymarket tax forms, Coinbase tax forms and Novig tax forms.

The "hasn't said" row is not the same as "sends nothing". Crypto.com's help article says it "may be required to issue to you a Form 1099-B if you are a U.S. person who traded contracts" but never names prediction or sports contracts. Underdog Predict's and Fanatics Markets' agreements promise "certain tax documents" without naming one, and DraftKings' promotion terms say event contract payments "may be classified as income and reported on Form 1099 as applicable".

PredictIt sits outside the table: its own Terms say it "is not regulated by, nor are its operators registered with, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)". Its FAQ (updated Sept 22, 2026) says it issues a "Form 1099" to US traders with net profit of $600 or more, without naming which 1099.

Every 1099 Picks a Tax Treatment

Each form, and each set of boxes on one, belongs to a different part of the tax code, so filling one in means first deciding what an event contract is. Three forms could carry event-contract results, and each lines up with one of the three ways we've seen people file.

Form 1099-B, boxes 8 through 11: Section 1256. The 2026 Instructions for Form 1099-B reserve these boxes, for brokers only, for "regulated futures, foreign currency, or Section 1256 option contracts". Box 8 is profit or loss realized on contracts closed in 2026. Boxes 9 and 10 are unrealized profit or loss on contracts still open at the end of 2025 and at the end of 2026. Box 11 is the aggregate of the three. That is mark-to-market reporting: a position open on December 31 counts at its year-end value, the way a Section 1256 filer reports on Form 6781. The instructions do not mention event contracts.

Form 1099-B, proceeds and basis boxes: standard capital. The same form's other boxes report each sale with its proceeds and cost basis, which a capital filer carries to Form 8949 and Schedule D. A broker that completes boxes 8 through 11 leaves every other numbered box blank except box 1a and, if applicable, box 4, so one 1099-B cannot report the same contract both ways.

Form W-2G or Form 1099-MISC: gambling or other income. A W-2G reports gambling winnings. A 1099-MISC reports other income, as one figure rather than a list of sales.

The two venues that do send a form picked differently. PrizePicks says the IRS "requires PrizePicks to provide you with Form 1099-B, which is an IRS tax document that reports all gains or losses as a result of purchasing and selling event contracts", and does not say which boxes it uses. Public says it "will issue you a Form 1099-MISC for your event contract transactions, listing them as other income, along with supplemental information regarding your gains or losses". Same kind of contract, two different forms.

Issuers have said in writing that a regulator's label and the IRS's need not match. Nadex, now Crypto.com's derivatives exchange, reported its contracts on a 1099-B while saying, in its notice for tax year 2022, that its instruments "are considered 'commodity options' categorized as 'swaps'" by the CFTC and that "this may or may not be consistent with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) categorization". Crypto.com's 2025 help article tells customers "it is your responsibility to determine the proper categorization of your transactions". Robinhood's consolidated 1099 can carry a Section 1256 section for regulated futures (Robinhood, checked October 9, 2026), and its event contracts get no form at all.

How each route turns the same year into a number is in the Section 1256 60/40 guide and are prediction markets taxed as gambling.

No IRS Guidance, and an Open Court Question

One venue states its reason in writing. Robinhood's event-contracts tax page, re-read October 25, 2026, says "The IRS hasn't issued specific guidance on the tax implications of trading event contracts" and "If the IRS issues guidance or specific regulations covering event contract reporting, we'll respond accordingly". No other venue we checked ties its forms to guidance or states a plan.

Nothing has arrived since. We searched irs.gov, home.treasury.gov and federalregister.gov on October 25, 2026 and found nothing on event contracts; KPMG's 2026 note says the IRS "has not yet weighed in on the information reporting considerations." The commodities regulator has set the question aside in writing. The CFTC's prediction-markets proposal, issued June 10, 2026, says "the Proposal and the discussion herein have no bearing on … the treatment of any contract, activity, receipt, or expense under the Internal Revenue Code."

The open court question is whether sports event contracts are gambling. That fight runs through state gaming law and federal commodities law, not the Internal Revenue Code, so no ruling in it decides federal tax treatment. It is still the same question a form would have to answer. Where it stands is in are prediction markets taxed as gambling and Kalshi's legal status.

Venue statements on this have changed. Webull's event-contracts FAQ, as archived on September 11, 2026, said "Webull will report transaction details to the appropriate tax authorities as required, using necessary tax forms such as Form 1099 or any other relevant documents." That answer is gone: the same URL now shows a funding article, and Webull's tax pages describe the 1099-B for "the sale of securities" without mentioning event contracts (read October 25, 2026).

People we've spoken with at several of these exchanges describe two concerns: committing customers to a treatment a later ruling could reverse, and building reporting before anyone knows what it should say.

What the Rules Say About an Incorrect 1099

For the trader, a form is something the IRS compares the return with. Its Automated Underreporter program, per IRM 4.19.3, identifies cases "through computer matching of tax returns with corresponding Information Returns Master File (IRMF) payer information documents", and sends a notice when the figures differ.

For the venue, the penalty is per form. Under IRC 6721 a failure covers both a late return and "the inclusion of incorrect information", and IRC 6722 applies the same to the copy furnished to the customer. A wrong 1099 can therefore draw two penalties per customer, one per copy. The statute sets $250 a return, capped at $3,000,000 a year, indexed for inflation. The IRS's penalty table for returns due in 2026 sets $60 per return up to 30 days late, $130 through August 1, $340 after that or never filed, and $680 for intentional disregard, adding: "There is no maximum penalty for intentional disregard." The 1099-B instructions, at box 5, warn brokers that they are "subject to penalties under sections 6721 and 6722 for failure to report boxes 1b, 1e, 1f, 1g, and 2 correctly".

What Prediction Markets Give You Instead of a 1099

Every venue below hands over the raw material, in different shapes:

• Kalshi (checked October 8, 2026): a yearly first-in, first-out P&L statement that "updates the first morning of each month", downloaded as a CSV of realized profit and loss on closed positions; an activity CSV of orders, trades, settlements and transfers; and the Get Fills and Get Settlements API endpoints, with a fee_cost on each fill. Positions still open are in none of the downloads.
• Robinhood (checked October 9, 2026): an annual statement, typically late January or early February, listing each trade with costs, proceeds, fees and net P&L. Robinhood calls it "the authoritative record of all costs, proceeds, and net P&L for the year" and also "not a substitute tax reporting form". Its only public API is for crypto (docs.robinhood.com, read October 25, 2026).
• Polymarket US (checked October 22, 2026): no documented in-app export, but GET /v1/portfolio/activities returns trades with price, quantity, cost basis and realized P&L, with fees on separate execution reports. Its CSV ledger reports start May 1, 2026.
• Gemini (read October 25, 2026): its prediction-markets API returns order history, per order rather than per fill, and settled positions with cost basis and net profit.
• ProphetX (read October 25, 2026): an API any identity-verified account can create keys for, with get_trades for filled orders and get_transactions for the wallet.
• ForecastEx through Interactive Brokers (read October 25, 2026): the Web API trades endpoint returns trades "for current day and six previous days", so a year has to be collected as it happens.
• Novig (checked October 22, 2026): a trading-history statement on request through Live Chat, ready in 1 to 2 business days, and an API that lists fills and transactions with an account management key.

A seven-day API window cannot be rebuilt later, so a ForecastEx year exists only if it was collected as it happened. What traders keep, venue by venue, is in how to track prediction market trades for taxes.

Of the people we've seen file, three routes are the most common: Section 1256, with the year's net, open positions marked at December 31, on Form 6781 and split 60/40; standard capital, with each closed position on Form 8949 and Schedule D; and gambling, with winnings on Schedule 1 and losses on Schedule A for people who itemize. Each is laid out in the Prediction Market Tax Center.

Realize reads Kalshi and Polymarket US directly through their APIs, read-only, and rebuilds the year from the fills.

Are Prediction Market Trades Public?

The trades are public; the traders are not. Kalshi's Get Trades endpoint needs no login and returns each trade's market, price, size and time. None of its fields identifies a user, member or account. Polymarket US's market feed is the same: price, quantity and time, with no account identifier (docs, read October 25, 2026).

Who traded sits with the venue and the regulator. Kalshi verifies its members' identity, Social Security number included, and Polymarket US verifies each participant's identity before the account can be funded or traded. The CFTC collects the identities of large traders through Parts 17 and 18 of its rules, and 7 U.S.C. 12(a)(1) bars it from publishing "the business transactions or market positions of any person". The same section lets it furnish information to another federal agency on request.

The IRS reaches a venue's books through its summons power. IRC 7602 lets the IRS summon anyone holding books relevant to a return, and IRC 7609(f) allows a "John Doe" summons for an unnamed group once a court agrees. That is how the IRS reached Coinbase customers: a November 2017 order enforced a narrowed John Doe summons covering 14,355 accounts. In 2019 the IRS announced letters to more than 10,000 taxpayers with virtual currency transactions.

A sportsbook differs on reporting: for 2026 it files a Form W-2G when a sports win is $2,000 or more and at least 300 times the wager, per the Instructions for Forms W-2G and 5754. Most prediction markets, as the table above shows, file no form on contract profit or loss.

Common Claims About Prediction Market 1099s, Checked

Each row starts with what the venue's own documents say, then the claim that contradicts it.

Methods: we read 53 pages on October 25, 2026, drawn from Google's top results for seven searches about prediction-market 1099s and IRS reporting, and from the sites four AI assistants cited when asked about Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, Coinbase and Novig forms. Our own pages were excluded. 9 of the 53 made at least one wrong statement about which form a venue sends.

Questions people ask

Does Kalshi send a 1099?

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Not for your trades. Kalshi's help center lists a 1099-INT for interest, a 1099-MISC for credits and rewards, a 1099-B it defines as covering crypto transfers, and a 1099-DA for digital assets, each only above an IRS threshold. Its account Documents page says Kalshi "does not report profits/losses to the IRS" (checked October 8, 2026). Each form is described on Realize's Kalshi tax forms page at realize.tax/kalshi/forms.

Does Polymarket send a 1099 to US users?

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Polymarket US has not said. As of October 22, 2026 no page of its documentation mentions a 1099, a W-9 or the IRS, while its Participant Agreement has traders consent to electronic delivery of "all tax forms, including, without limitation, IRS Form 1099-B". That consent does not commit Polymarket US to sending any particular form. The international, onchain Polymarket is a separate product. Details are at realize.tax/polymarket/forms.

Will Robinhood send me a 1099 for event contracts?

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No. Robinhood's help center says "Robinhood doesn't provide a 1099 for event contract trades" and that event contract trades "aren't reported to the IRS by Robinhood" (re-read October 25, 2026). It sends an annual statement listing each trade, which it calls "not a substitute tax reporting form". Its consolidated 1099 can still carry a Section 1256 section for regulated futures. Details are at realize.tax/robinhood/forms.

Does PrizePicks send a 1099?

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Yes, for event contracts. PrizePicks' tax help page (updated October 19, 2026) says it sends Form 1099-B for Team and Culture picks, reporting "all gains or losses as a result of purchasing and selling event contracts", the following February. All other pick types are separate and get a 1099-MISC at $600 or more in net winnings.

Do prediction markets report to the IRS?

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Most report nothing about your contract profit or loss. Kalshi and Robinhood say so directly, and most other CFTC-regulated venues name no form for it. The IRS can still receive other forms tied to your account, such as a 1099-INT for interest or a 1099-MISC for credits, and it can obtain a venue's books with a summons. PrizePicks (1099-B) and Public (1099-MISC) are the two venues that say they send a form for event contracts.

Do I have to report Kalshi winnings without a 1099?

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Gross income under IRC 61 is income "from whatever source derived"; it is not defined by whether a form was sent. People who file a Kalshi year build the figure from Kalshi's P&L statement or its API. Of the people we've seen file, the three most common routes are Section 1256 on Form 6781, standard capital on Form 8949 and Schedule D, and gambling on Schedule 1.

Are Kalshi trades public?

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The trades are, the traders are not. Kalshi's public trades endpoint shows each trade's market, price, size and time with no account or user field. Kalshi verifies who its members are, including their Social Security number, and keeps their fills. The CFTC collects large traders' identities and federal law (7 U.S.C. 12) bars it from publishing them. The IRS can reach a venue's books with a summons.