IEM Cologne drove 63% of all Kalshi esports betting volume during the week of June 7-13

The week of June 7-13 saw $66.2 million in esports prediction market contracts in Kalshi, and the story of what caused that number was never really in doubt. Counter-Strike 2 was responsible for nearly two-thirds of all transactions, with IEM Cologne in the dominant position for all esports transactions.

That $66.2M figure is fair compared to the $36.18M generated last week (June 1–7), though there’s a caveat: both data sets include June 7, so they’re not entirely consistent. With that noted, the change in direction is significant regardless: more than $30M in additional volume during the period when IEM Cologne enters the most important stages of the tournament.

CS2’s 63.1% share is surprising, though. In a week that also featured the LCK, LEC, VALORANT Masters London, the CDL regular season, and Rainbow Six action in North America and Europe, CS2 still demands nearly all the attention it can get. The reason, one might suggest, is straightforward: IEM Cologne is the premier CS2 event of the summer and is right up there with the most prestigious esports events.

In addition, as explored in our game-by-game breakdown last week, CS2 has a gambling culture deeper than any other esport. This goes beyond many years of skin betting, gambling sponsorships, and an audience that is more comfortable with the idea of ​​speculative markets, trading and betting and/or betting. Great competition, coupled with the desire to trade creates an economy. Another point to consider is that there is a possibility that sportsbooks use Kalshi liquidity to hedge their exposure.

IEM Cologne is not just any Counter-Strike tournament. The 18,500 capacity LANXESS Stadium in Cologne is affectionately called the “cathedral of Counter-Strike” by fans and is one of the most notable games on the CS calendar. With no World Championship, or an event like The International, the Grand circuit is as big as events go in CS. It’s fair to say that Cologne is up there with the most prominent esports events out there, in terms of reputation.

Spirit vs. 9z’s game winning market alone generated over $2.56M in contracts for both sides making it the highest selling match of the entire esports week across all games. Digging deeper into the data, the correction produced another $330,000 in map betting and over/under markets as well.

The flagship IEM Cologne market took $449,015 in contracts across the field during the week. In this case, the context is very important as the summary that took us seven days does not tell the story.

The market opened on May 31st, meaning this summary captures the week of the big event, but it’s a good gauge of how warm traders feel about each team’s chances relative to their stated odds.

From the data we released, Spirit led the contract volume of the winning market with 22.5%, and Vitality was second with 16.8%. The Falcons, the team that will meet Vitality in the one-elimination playoffs, attracted 11.0%, and that individual game is sure to see significant interest when it comes.

Spirit’s dominance of match-level contract volume during the week perhaps points to Vitality’s continued certainty as outright favorites which meant match-specific trading in their matches failed to generate much interest.

Meanwhile, however, Vitality attracted a 16.8% share of the tournament winners’ contracts during the same period and maintains its position as tournament favorite in Kalshi. The data we review in post competition will show how performance has changed before, during and after playing.

VALORANT Masters London is running at the same time, and the overall market for the week seems to be all over the place. While the winning market of IEM Cologne had two clear leaders – Spirit at 22.5% and Vitality at 16.8% – Masters London was almost flat among the top five. Edward Gaming led with 17.2%, but XLG Esports (12.2%), Paper Rex (11.9%), and NRG (11.6%) were all within a few points.

It also shows the relative scale gap from VALORANT to Counter-Strike. The entire market that won the VALORANT tournament generated $65,354 in contracts for all teams – about 14.5% of what the top CS2 game market (Air vs. 9z) generated alone. Valorant’s overall 9.9% share of the week’s volume is healthy, and in-game matchmaking has been strong, but the tournament-winning format has yet to draw the depth of engagement generated on par with CS2.

League of Legends held its expected second place with 22.0% of weekly volume, driven by LCK. T1 vs. Hanwha Life and KT Rolster vs. Gen.G series were the two busiest markets, next to LEC and LPL. It’s worth noting that LoL’s $14.56M came without a grand finals week; this is a baseline League activity run by regional leagues. When it comes to MSI and other notable events coming up we may see it challenging the status quo.

Call of Duty and Rainbow Six each accounted for just over 2% of the total volume, underestimating the quality of the individual game markets for both games. 100 Thieves vs. Wildcard Gaming R6 matchup drew $233K in combined contracts, and OpTic Texas vs. Paris Gentle Mates pulled in $116K in CoD. Both of these numbers are a decent amount of volume and show that there is still interest when big names are wheeled out in Call of Duty. However, they were unequivocally undercut by the IEM Cologne result.

For the editor Data note: All figures represent forecast market contracts traded on Kalshi during June 7–13, 2026, where 1 contract = $1. Contract volume reflects market activity and trader sentiment; it does not directly represent the constraints or possibilities mentioned without further calculation. 7-day summary (Jun 11–17): $57.0M esports contracts, 861K trades. Previous period (Jun 1–7): $36.18M — note that both data sets include June 7, so they’re not entirely consistent; from this week onwards the reporting window goes from Sunday to Saturday.