American prediction-market platform that lets users bet against each other on whether a stated event will occur. In 2024 a federal court allowed it to offer markets on elections. Three days after Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2025, Kalshi opened markets on sports. Donald Trump junior is a strategic adviser, and Brian Quintenz—Trump's nominee to lead Kalshi's regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—sits on its board.
More than $1.4bn has been bet on Kalshi's sports contracts, which are available even in states that have not legalised sports betting. In August 2025 Kalshi announced contracts on score differentials and player statistics in NFL games, replicating core sports-betting products. The stock-trading platforms Robinhood and Webull offer its markets. Robinhood attracted $500m of bets on presidential-election contracts in just over a week. See also: prediction markets. Kalshi claims that, unlike sportsbooks, it does not have to comply with states' regulations or pay them taxes, arguing that derivatives exchanges are federally regulated and beyond the reach of state law. Seven states have ordered it to close these markets for their residents; Kalshi has won injunctions in New Jersey and Nevada preventing enforcement while courts consider the case, but lost a similar case in Maryland. Native American tribes have sued.
Trading volume on Kalshi rose 12-fold to $24bn in 2025.
In June 2025 Kalshi raised $185m at a valuation of $2bn, including an investment from the boss of Citadel Securities. Its chief executive is Tarek Mansour.
Trading volumes on Kalshi and Polymarket together surpassed $50bn in 2025, up from $16bn the year before. Most bets concern sports, but wagers on economic conditions such as GDP growth, payrolls and inflation account for 1-2% of trading.
In a 2026 paper, Anthony Diercks of the Federal Reserve and two colleagues assessed whether Kalshi could complement the data already at the central bank's disposal, and concluded that prediction markets look like "a dead cert". The authors found that Kalshi outperforms conventional instruments such as futures and options contracts at forecasting where the Fed's benchmark interest rate will land in a given month, and frequently offered a more accurate range of plausible outcomes. For GDP growth and unemployment—where market-based alternatives do not exist—Kalshi probabilities appeared as good as analysts' consensus forecasts compiled by Bloomberg for unemployment and core inflation, and better for headline inflation.
Kalshi is not infallible: probabilities implied by related contracts can be out of step, and trading is often so thin that even modest wagers of $500 can move prices. Some odds seem to disproportionately track the Fed's Atlanta branch GDPNow estimates. The incoming Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, is a fan of real-time economic indicators. Mr Diercks and his co-authors are building a website, subject to approval, to make data on individual Kalshi contracts easier to download, interpret and use.
Fox Corporation has been negotiating a partnership with Kalshi to provide betting odds for news events, as part of a broader effort to attract younger viewers.
On August 19th 2025 FanDuel, America's biggest sports-betting site, announced plans to launch a prediction market with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the world's largest futures exchange. For now it will offer contracts on stock indices, oil prices and American GDP. If Kalshi prevails in court on sports contracts, the alliance would enable FanDuel—whose corporate parent owns Betfair Exchange, the world's largest sports-prediction market—to offer de facto sports betting in states that have not legalised it, such as California and Texas.
I don't think 'It's better than hurling yourself into a meat grinder' is a good rationale for doing something.