Kalshi Tees Up First Athlete Deal With Bryson DeChambeau

The prediction market Kalshi has made pacts with news channels, sports leagues, and teams, but it didn’t have an athlete endorser until now.

Golfer Bryson DeChambeau has reached an agreement with Kalshi that will include a TV commercial, social media posts, live appearances and promotions, branded content, and more.

The deal will also mean the launch of markets on events in which DeChambeau plays, according to a statement shared with Front Office Sports. The company has offered LIV Golf event contracts in the past, although last year it stopped offering those markets. It currently offers a market on how many course records DeChambeau will break in his course record series on YouTube this year.

“Am I gonna make a birdie on the next hole? Am I gonna win this tournament or that tournament? There’s just so many things you can do with prediction markets,” he told FOS on the course at LIV’s Teams Week in South Florida.

Asked whether he’ll pitch LIV on signing with Kalshi, too, DeChambeau said, “They have to. Come on, let’s go.”

Kalshi will announce the deal later on Wednesday. Kalshi declined to comment on the length of the agreement and financial terms.

A Kalshi spokesperson told FOS golf was a “surprise hit” for the platform in terms of volume in 2025, with $456 million in total traded on the sport.

DeChambeau, whose LIV Golf contract expires after the 2026 season, has not yet committed to re-signing with the Saudi-backed golf league. Fellow golf star Brooks Koepka decided to leave the league with one year left on his contract; he’s rejoining the PGA Tour but facing financial penalties to do so. The PGA Tour earlier this week unveiled a “Returning Member Program” that subjects Koepka and any other participating golfers—which would include DeChambeau if he departs LIV to return to the PGA Tour—to “one of the largest financial repercussions in professional sports history.”

The golfer is not shy about getting involved with technology trends. In 2020, DeChambeau became the first active pro golfer to partner with DraftKings, and in 2021, he announced a set of NFTs. The limited release included five different digital trading cards that were put up for auction on NFT trading platform OpenSea. The auction results were underwhelming.

In late 2024, he and Koepka played a made-for-TV match against PGA Tour golfers Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler for a purse of at least $10 million that was paid in crypto.

For Kalshi, the agreement with DeChambeau marks another milestone in its march toward mainstream legitimacy. In December, the prediction-market platform reached a deal with the NHL’s Blackhawks. Under that deal, each side can use the other’s intellectual property for co-marketing purposes, they will cross-promote on social media platforms, and Kalshi will be promoted during home games at the United Center and on Blackhawks broadcasts. 

Kalshi had already been an “official partner” of the NHL, alongside rival prediction-market platform Polymarket, which a few weeks later announced a deal of its own with the Rangers.

Both Kalshi and Polymarket have made mainstream partnerships a major part of their strategy in recent months. Kalshi has deals with news organizations CNN and CNBC, plus sneaker resale platform StockX, while Polymarket has deals with UFC, the Golden Globes, Dow Jones, and more.

In addition to the NHL, both are also partnered with Google—under that agreement, Kalshi and Polymarket data will be integrated into Google Finance.

They and other platforms are pushing to make prediction markets an inevitable part of the broader financial trading system, but the industry faces significant pushback from state regulators, Native American tribes, and consumers. Kalshi faces more than a dozen lawsuits, including two proposed class actions filed on behalf of consumers, and while Polymarket has mostly avoided the same legal headaches, it recently received its first cease-and-desist letter from the state regulator in Tennessee.

David Rumsey contributed additional reporting.