Kalshi review

What Kalshi is

Kalshi was founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, received approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to operate as a Designated Contract Market in November 2020, and opened to the public in July 2021. That registration is the same legal category as a futures exchange, and it is why Kalshi has been able to list contracts on things no sportsbook or casino can: inflation prints, Fed decisions, election results, weather, box office numbers.

The company grew up fast after it won a court fight with its own regulator in 2024 over election markets, and then faster still when it added sports. By 2025 it was powering Robinhood's prediction markets and had media partnerships with CNN and CNBC. A $1 billion funding round in 2026 valued it at $22 billion, and by June it was reported to be past $2 billion in annualised revenue.

What you can trade

• Sports: game winners, spreads, totals, player props, futures, and multi-leg "combos" that work like parlays. This is the biggest category by volume and the one under legal pressure.
• Politics and elections: who wins, control of Congress, approval ratings, bills passing.
• Economics and finance: CPI, Fed rate decisions, jobs numbers, where the S&P or Bitcoin closes.
• Everything else: weather, entertainment awards, box office, science, tech launches, "will X say Y" mention markets.

Each market has a written rulebook that says exactly what counts as yes, what source settles it, and when. Reading it is not optional; most disputes on Kalshi trace back to someone who didn't.

Fees on a real trade

Kalshi charges a fee when an order fills, calculated as 7% × contract price × (1 − contract price), per contract, rounded up to the cent. That formula peaks at 50¢ and shrinks toward the extremes:

Contract price	Fee per contract	Fee on 100 contracts
50¢	1.75¢ (rounds to 2¢)	$1.75
70¢ or 30¢	1.47¢	$1.47
90¢ or 10¢	0.63¢	$0.63
97¢ or 3¢	0.2¢	$0.20

Resting limit orders (you set a price and wait) are free on most markets. There is no settlement fee, no membership fee and no fee on ACH deposits or withdrawals; debit card deposits can carry up to 2%. We work through what this means for your break-even on the fees page.

Deposits and withdrawals

Minimum deposit is $10 ($1,000 for wires). You can fund with debit card (including Apple Pay and Google Pay), ACH bank transfer, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, crypto or wire. Deposits sit under a security hold before they can be withdrawn; the length depends on the method. Withdrawals go back to the method you deposited with; debit card withdrawals are normally instant, with occasional extra verification. Bank and PayPal/Venmo accounts must be in your own name.

Where it's legal

Kalshi's position is that as a federally regulated exchange it can operate in all 50 states, and for non-sports markets that has largely held. Sports contracts are a different story. As of mid-October 2026: the Third Circuit sided with Kalshi against New Jersey (April 2026); the Ninth Circuit sided with Nevada against Kalshi (August 2026), ruling its sports contracts are likely sports gambling under state law; Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Washington and others have cases at various stages; and New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to settle who regulates these markets. Kalshi has pulled sports boards in Nevada, Michigan and Washington. Our state pages track this with dates.

The rough edges

• Payout disputes. In January 2026 traders on some NFL markets were initially refunded only their stakes before Kalshi paid full winnings after a backlash. A market on Iran's Supreme Leader was frozen with a reported $77 million in winnings unpaid. Rare, but they happened, and the rulebook decides who's right.
• Enforcement cuts both ways. Kalshi has fined and suspended users for insider trading and for betting on their own political campaigns. Good for market integrity; a reminder that your trades are watched.
• Liquidity. Big markets are deep. Niche ones can have a wide spread and nobody to sell to, so the price you see isn't always a price you can get.
• Fees on thin edges. Two cents a contract sounds small until you're trading 50¢ coin flips, where it's 4% of your stake.

Who it suits

Someone who wants to trade on news and data, who will read a rulebook, and who treats a 60¢ contract as a 60% probability rather than a sure thing. If what you actually want is a sportsbook with promos and parlays, Kalshi can do that too, but it's the part of the product most likely to be unavailable in your state next month.