Indianapolis 500 Races on Sunday

In this issue of The Prediction Report, we rev our engines with Auto Racing previews of the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, take a look at DraftKings readying to launch Railbird, Bulgaria shocking the world in EuroVision 2026 along with a slew of European soccer tournament final matches, including the 2026 German Cup.

The marquee race on the IndyCar Series circuit, the 2026 Indianapolis 500, will race from the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Asphalt and Brick) from Speedway, Indiana outside of Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon (FOX, 12 EDT/11 CDT/10 MDT/9 PDT).

FOX will have pre-race coverage (10 EDT/7 PDT) with Green Flag coverage starting around 12:30 pm EDT with the 110th running of the historic race expected to start around 12:45 pm. The INDYCAR Radio Network will have extensive coverage for fans wanting to hear it on the radio.

There will be 33 drivers on the grid in the 2026 Indianapolis 500 and practice for the big Memorial Day weekend race and practice started May 12 with Time Trials being held on May 16-17. Today (Friday, May 22), Carb Day and the Pit Stop Challenge are scheduled to be held at the Brickyard.

Paved 117 years ago in brick in the autumn of 1909 when a Coke was a nickel (5¢), a gallon of gas was only 13¢, and there were only 46 states in the US and no Internet or Pringles, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has always been the most iconic open-wheel track in the United States. Period.

In the 2026 NTT IndyCar Series, Álex Palou (237 points), Kyle Kirkwood (210), David Malukas (185), and Christian Lundgaard lead the 2026 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season standings heading into Naptown where the winner will be rewarded with a nice cold bottle of milk.

Curt Cignetti, the head coach of the Indiana University football team, will drive the Pace car, a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X and Katherine Legge will attempt the “Double Duty” of trying to race in the NASCAR event earlier in the day on Sunday (Coca-Cola 600) and the Indianapolis 500 later.

Here is the schedule, the 2026 Indianapolis 500 Spotter Guide and where you can catch the race:

While 33 drivers prep for Sunday's race at the Brickyard, a very different kind of deadline is drawing attention from investors this weekend.

Now, on to who the prediction markets like to win the race itself on Sunday.

At DraftKings, Álex Palou (+450), Josef Newgarden (+550), Pato O'Ward (+600), David Malukas (+900), Scott McLaughlin (+1000), Kyle Kirkwood (+1000), Conor Daly (+1000), Scott Dixon (+1500), and Marcus Ericsson (+1600) were the online oddsmakers’ Indy 500 favorites.

The longshots to win the 200-Lap race around the 2½-mile track on Sunday are Christian Rasmussen (+1600), 2018 winner Will Power (+1800), 2020 winner, Takuma Sato (+2000), Santino Ferrucci (+2000), Christian Lundgaard (+2000), and Alexander Rossi (+2000).

Last year in the 2025 Indianapolis 500, Álex Palou (Chip Ganassi Racing) won the event—the time a Spaniard has won—in his Dallara DW12-Honda. If the 29-year-old can win it again this time around in the Hoosier State, he will win a bonus $40,000 in the BorgWarner Rolling Jackpot.

➤Trading Thoughts: Team Penske has won 4 of the past 8 Indy 500’s (2018, 2019, 2023, 2024) with Honda winning 6 of the last 9 with a Chevrolet crossing the finish line first 3 times. Four-time INDYCAR champion Palou (2021, 2023, 2024, 2025) is the man to beat and will be motivated.

So Álex Palou is the standings-leader, drives a Honda, won the race last year, can snag $40,000 if he repeats, and his DHL-sponsored No. 10 car is off to another great start, winning 3 out of the first 5 INDYCAR rounds (St Petersburg, Barber, Long Beach). ➤Race Winner Pick: Álex Palou +450

Click here to bet on the 2026 Indianapolis 500 at DraftKings

Speaking of massive opportunities with serious upside, one IPO is drawing attention from investors looking to get in before the biggest stock market event in history.

On to the prediction markets news: Bulgaria just pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Eurovision history.

We followed the Eurovision 2026 Winner market closely here at TPR, and we were as shocked as the rest of the world to see huge underdogs Bulgaria capture the prestigious Eurovision Song Contest title at the Final on Saturday, May 16 at Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.

The winning song was the catchy club hit “Bangaranaga” by Dara and it was trading at as low as 0.5c on May 7 at Polymarket meaning this was around a 200/1 return for any souls brave enough to buy Bulgaria ‘Yes’ at that low point a little more than a week before the Eurovision 2026 Final.

The song surprised in both the Jury and Public votes and gave Bulgaria—who will be hosting the competition in 2027—its first win ever as well as the first win ever for a Balkan nation. The margin of victory was 173 points and the largest margin ever in the competition’s history.

Israel (Noam Bettan) finished in 2nd place with Romania (Alexandra Căpitănescu )—another Balkan country—proudly following in 3rd place in the Eurovision 2026 Winner market. Some countries boycotted Eurovision 2026 due to Israel’s participation.

One day before the final at Polymarket, Finland was the massive favorite as it was most of the last few weeks, with Australia—although in Oceania—following with the public giving the Aussies around a 30% chance of winning with Romania following with 3% and finishing where predicted.

The 27-year-old Dara (Darina Nikolaeva Yotova) is a native of Varna, Bulgaria and is one of the bigger names on the Bulgarian music scene and the now-winner of the the renowned 70th-annual Song Contest came to fame after winning the Bulgarian edition of The X Factor back in 2015.

Parlays and parlay cards have always been huge money-makers for brick-and-mortar and now online sportsbooks, and now the prediction market titans are finding out just how much people like these types of bets, whether called “combos” or “parlays.” And they are very hard to win.

A new report from Sportico Assistant Editor Dan Bernstein revealed that Kalshi retail bettors lost over $100 million on parlays this year ($116.8 million), with $35 million in fees making that number look ugly to traders but pretty to Kalshi who continues doing massive sports volume.

The volume was around $800 million in the first four months of 2026 with Kalshi making about $15 on every $100 placed by parlay builders on the New York City-based prediction market, according to University of Maryland graduate Bernstein’s excellent research in the story.

Some felt after the Super Bowl and football ended, sports volume would drop at places like Kalshi, Polymarket, and Robinhood Predictions, but the numbers have remained incredibly steady as traders have been solidly betting MLB, NBA, NHL, Soccer, NASCAR, F1, Golf, and other sports.

Parlays or combos are harder to win because you cannot lose (must win or push) any of the elements (or legs) in the bet or the entire ticket is a loser. When combining multiple elements, the mathematical probability of winning all of the legs decreases greatly with each element you add.

When you see people posting winning parlay tickets from online sportsbooks or screenshots of tickets from prediction markets on Twitter, remember these are anomalies and most parlays or combos lose and are a very bad long-term betting strategy. Fun? Incredibly? Profitable? Come on.

And big respect to Bernstein for doing the journalistic legwork on this story, with many rehashing his findings but failing to cite him (or Sportico) with some unattributed AI versions of Bernstein’s work polluting our new world Man vs Machine writing landscape. I hate machines and eat cheese.

Days after his report, Bernstein posted on Twitter “Dune, an official Kalshi partner, has pulled the data sources I used to find Kalshi parlay results from public view after my reporting this week.” So Dune’s relationship with Kalshi may have made them pull the plug on that info source. Not smart.

Online sportsbook giant DraftKings (DKNG—NASDAQ) has already launched its standalone app called DraftKings Predictions in December of 2025, and now the company is set to launch Railbird (DKeX) on June 1, the acquired exchange-style technology DK bought last year.

According to a report from Defirate.com in May, the Railbird platform has a schedule market-maker program start date set for June 1, 2026, so if there is a race between DraftKings and FanDuel to get whatever piece of the PM pie they can get, DK seems to be winning for now.

Being a CFTC-licensed exchange is a very big deal for a player in this emerging marketplace for Railbird, where regulation means a degree of credibility in a space still experiencing growing pains as the sports betting exchanges also had after the Supreme Court struck down PASPA in 2018.

Designated Contract Maker (DCM) Railbird was founded back in 2021 by Myles Saffran and Edward Tian, and like Kalshi and Polymarket, is a New York City based-company. DraftKing’s corporate headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts and Jason Robins is the CEO.

Another new study showed what we have already known for a long time: US states without legalized sports betting love PMs and binary options contracts and continue to make up the vast majority of sports volume with heavy-hitters California and Texas leading the way.

Other US states where online sports gambling is still illegal include Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Hawai’i, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Carolina, North Dakota, and Utah.

The American Gaming Association has predictably said that this current reality is a “blatant dismissal of voters’ decisions and state laws that choose not to legalize sports betting,” but in essence, they’re lobbyists for the casinos and would say that in an effort to protect their interests. 

More blah, blah, blah in this seemingly never-ending fight about nothing as the prediction markets know they are a lot like online sports betting and companies like DraftKings and FanDuel know they’re a lot like prediction markets, so much so that they have both entered the space with intent.

On Saturday, Hull City and Middlesbrough will play in the 2025-26 English Promotion Final at historic Wembley Stadium (GrassMaster) in London, England (Paramount+, 11:30 EDT/10:30 CDT/8:30 PDT) for a chance to be promoted to the English Premier League next season.

In a massive piece of breaking news, Southampton was expelled from playing in the EFL Championship final after a decision from the EFL Independent Disciplinary Commission which will also deduct 4 points from the Saints’ 2026-27 season. Oops. And the Smoggies cheered loudly.

So you’re asking, “What is going on there in Jolly Old England?” Nothing big, mate. Southampton was only spying on Middlesbrough before Leg 2 of the two clubs EFL Semifinal series. Sort of like the KGB with tea and crumpettes. The Saints will appeal. And lose. Carry on. No need to get weird.

There are two markets you can get involved with for this match, the EFL Championship: Team Promoted to EPL and the match itself. Hull City got to this critical point by beating Millwall, 2-0 while Middlesbrough needed a club to be expelled from the title game for spying to get here. Life.

Coventry City (28-11-7, 95 PTS) and Ipswich Town (23-15-8, 84 PTS) earned EPL promotion while 20th-place Wolverhampton Wanderers (3-10-24, 19 PTS) and 19th-place Burnley (4-9-24, 21 PTS) are relegated with West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur trying to avoid 18th place.

➤Trading Thoughts: Championship 5th-place side Middlesbrough (LDWWD) has been in a little bit better form than has 6th-place Hull City (LDDLW), but Hull City won both meetings in the EFL Regular Season, winning 1-0 at Middlesbrough and rolling to a 4-1 home win, both in December.

But none of that really matters here and the first goal will be gold in a match which may see little scoring in Londontown. Oliver McBurnie (18 goals) and the Tigers can score, but The Boro has allowed just 4 goals in their last 5 matches. This could be a stalemate. ➤Trading Pick: Under 2.5 66¢

Click here to trade on the EFL Championship: Team Promoted to EPL at Polymarket

A week earlier than the Men’s UEFA Champions League Final, the 2026 Women’s UEFA Champions League Final will see Barcelona facing OL Lyon for the title at Ullevaal Stadium (Grass) in Oslo, Norway (Paramount+, ESPN Deportes, 12 EDT/11 CDT/10 MDT/9 PDT).

In the UEFA Women’s Champions League winner polymarket at Polymarket, Polish F Ewa Pajor (9 goals) and FC Barcelona (87%) are the popular choice in the real-time, crowd-sourced probability exchange with OL Lyon (27.7%) seen as a big underdog to lift the trophy in Oslo.

In the actual 3-way match market FC Barcelona vs OL Lyon, Spanish side Barça Femení was trading at 76% with OL Lyon at 17% and a Draw after 90 minutes and Injury Time at 17%.

➤Trading Thoughts: Alexia Putellas (8 goals) and Barcelona have scored 37 goals in this tournament and head in here with a +29 GD while Lyon has produced 26 goals and sits with a +17 GD. The big question here is can Les Lyonnaises pull off the upset against Barça Femení? Likely not.

Back Barça Femení (27-0-1 in Spanish Liga F) in the match and tourney markets here. Barça went 5-1-0 (20 GF-3 GA) in the League Phase then outscored rivals RM and Bayern 17-5 to get here. OLL went 5-1-0 (18 GF-5 GA) in the LP then eliminated VfL Wolfsburg and Arsenal (8 GF-4 GA).

These two met in the 2023 UCL Final with Barça winning 2-0 as Aitana Bonmatí and Putellas—still with the squad—scored. With studs like Pajor, Clàudia Pina, and Kika Nazareth, Les Lyonnaises will have trouble defending so many proven and confident goal-scorers. ➤Trading Picks: Barcelona 75¢, Barcelona 92¢ To Win Women’s UCL

Click here to trade on the Barcelona vs OL Lyon Women’s UCL Final at Polymarket

The 2025-26 DFB-Pokal (German Cup) Final will see Harry Kane (7 goals) and perennial powerhouse Bayern Munich facing fellow Bundesliga club VfB Stuttgart at Olympiastadion (Grass) in Berlin, Germany on Saturday (ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPN+, 2 EDT/1 CDT/12 MDT/11 PDT).

How did the last 2 of 64 German Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga clubs get to this championship match? Bayern shut out RB Leipzig (2-0) and Bayer Leverkusen (2-0) in the Quarterfinals and semifinals while Stuttgart ousted Holstein Kiel (3-0) and SC Freiburg in a thriller (2-1 AET).

At Kalshi in the DFB-Pokal Champion exchange, bettors were behind Bayern Munich (89%) over VfB Stuttgart (21%). At DraftKings in the 3-way Moneyline market, heavy favorites Bayern Munich was priced at -300 (1/3) with underdogs Stuttgart at +600 (6/1) with a Draw at +450 (9/2).

➤Trading Thoughts: One huge thing to think about when trading on this match in both the Side and Totals markets, is that this will be mighty Bayern’s last game of the season and they can and will leave it all out on the pitch. This means plenty of goals, goals, goals, and BM may go Over itself.

There have been an average of 3.31 GPG in the German Cup, and with superstar Kane, rising star Michael Olise, and Luis Díaz (3 goals), Denis Undav (2 goals) and Die Roten (The Reds) got to the point they aimed for but found the opponents it didn’t want to see in Berlin awaiting.

Forty-year-old Bayern GK Manuel Neuer will now be with the German national team for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and the legend should start here. Since FCB was eliminated by PSG in the UCL, it has allowed just 1 goal. Trading Picks: Bayern Munich To Win DFB-Pokal 88¢, Bayern Munich Match

 Click here to trade on the 2026 DFB-Pokal Champion at Kalshi 

There may have been 37 Matchweeks played to this point, and we won’t need Matchweek 38—when all 20 English Premier League clubs are playing and kick off at the same time—to determine a champion with Arsenal (25-7-5, 82 PTS) topping Manchester City (23-9-5, 78 PTS).

In the end, the English Premier League Champion market at Polymarket generated a healthy $322,582,117 in trading volume with 19 of the 20 clubs cashing in only if you bought ‘No’ contracts with Arsenal winning for the first time since the Mesozoic Era. I kid. I am a Chelsea fan.

But we will need Matchweek 38 to see who the last club relegated from the EPL will be between scared London sides West Ham (36 points) and Tottenham (38 points) with a 17th-place finish seeming as good as a promotion to the top flight with all that there is to lose for one of these two.

Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Aston Villa, and Liverpool all earned UEFA Champions League berths while upstarts AFC Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford snagged Europa League spots while 20th-place Wolves and 19th-place Burnley will be relegated. Cheerio.

➤Trading Thoughts: This is like the last week in NFL Regular Season where few give a rat’s ass and no one wants to get hurt and many are looking forward to future endeavors like the FIFA World Cup. Arsenal and City should both win in Matchweek 38. ➤Trading Picks: Arsenal-MCFC Parlay

The 14th race of the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season will see the stock car circuit at the Charlotte Motor Speedway (Asphalt) in Charlotte, North Carolina for the 2026 Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday, May 24 (TV—Prime, HBO Max, RADIO—PRN, SiriusXM, 6 EDT/5 CDT/4 MDT/3 PDT).

As we said above in the Indianapolis 500 preview, British driver Katherine Legge will be racing in the Indianapolis 500 earlier the day before getting behind the wheel of her Live Fast No. 78 car to attempt the “Double Duty” here at the Quad Oval track in the heart of the Tar Heel State.

The 45-year-old Legge will be the first woman to ever attempt “The Double” as well as the oldest but before you get sentimental and see yourself making a dream trade or two, know the odds are under 1% and the teams she will be racing for on Sunday are underfunded and non-charter teams.

Polymarket NASCAR traders like Denny Hamlin (19%), Tyler Reddick (16%), Kyle Larson (12%), Christopher Bell (12%), William Byron (10%), Chase Elliott (8%), Ryan Blaney (8%), Chase Briscoe (7%), Carson Hocevar (5%), Bubba Wallace (5%), and Ty Gibbs (5%) Sunday in Charlotte.

➤Trading Thoughts: We nailed the winner of the NASCAR All-Star Race Winner race for you here in Volume 68 of The Prediction Report with Denny Hamlin and will continue to suggest backing some ‘Yes’ contracts on him. Hamlin now sits in the #2 spot on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Standings.

This 400-lap, 600-mile race is the longest on the NASCAR schedule and requires endurance, a great pit crew and plan, a good car and driver and some luck to deal with the marathon nature of the Coca-Cola 600. Six hundred is a lot of miles. Sunday will see so many laps.

Ross Chastain (Chevrolet) won last year but Toyota has won 6 of 11 here and the last 9 winners are different drivers. It seems one may repeat with Larson (2021), Hamlin (2022), and Bell (2024) capable. Bell (Toyota) hasn’t won this year. ➤Race Winner Trading Picks: Denny Hamlin 19¢, Christopher Bell 12¢

Next up on the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series calendar and another race we will preview and make picks for you here at The Prediction Report is the Cracker Barrel 400 from the Nashville Superspeedway in Nashville, Tennessee on Sunday, May 31 (Prime, HBO Max, 10 EDT/7 PDT).

Click here to trade on the NASCAR Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 at Kalshi

The 2026 Major League Soccer (MLS) dribbles on with a nice doubleheader on Sunday starting out with the struggling Philadelphia Union (1-4-9) facing living legend Lionel Messi and Inter Miami CF (8-4-2) at the brand new, Nu Stadium (Grass) in Miami, Florida (FOX, Apple TV, 7 ET/6 CT/4 PT).

The second of the televised games is a nice Western Conference showdown between Dennis Bouanga (5 goals), David Martínez (4 goals), and LAFC (6-3-5) and Seattle (7-3-2) at BMO Stadium (Grass) in Los Angeles (FOX, Apple TV, 9 EDT/8 CDT/6 PDT).

In the 2026 MLS Cup Champion market at Robinhood, Messi (11 goals) and Inter Miami CF (22¢) are the trader’s favorites followed by Los Angeles FC (12¢) with the Seattle Sounders (6¢) and Philadelphia Union (1¢) as bigger underdogs to win the championship. Inter Miami won it in 2025.

➤Trading Thoughts: Looking at the last 5 H2H meetings between Philadelphia and Miami, we see veteran vampire Luis Suárez and the Herons are an unbeaten 4-1-0 (W-D-L), outscoring the now lowly Union 14-7. The popular Both Teams To Score (‘Yes’) prop is a perfect 5-0 the last 5 meetings.

In the last five meetings in the Seattle-LAFC series, Hugo Lloris, Son Heung-Min and LAFC are 3-0-2 with the Black and Gold registering 3 Clean Sheets. The last three MLS meetings (LAFC 4-0 SEA, SEA 5-2 LAFC, LAFC 1-2 SEA) have seen a total of 14 goals (4.67 GPG) Trading Picks: Inter Miami CF, LAFC-Seattle Over 2.5

Click here to trade on the 2026 MLS Cup Champion at Robinhood

 ➠ In the next issue of The Prediction Report, we’ll highlight the much-anticipated SpaceX IPO and look at some markets surrounding that likely record-setting stock market event, Polymarket teaming up with Italian Serie A, Sporttrade shuttering to possibly get into PMs, three MLB previews, an NHL Eastern Conference Final preview and a DI College Baseball market look with the tournament set to start. Thanks for reading and subscribing to this bi-weekly newsletter for prediction market traders, sports bettors, and news junkies alike.