Kalshi Review for February: Is Kalshi Legit?

In my Kalshi review, I’ll give you my fair and honest account of this prediction market site, which is changing the way we participate on sports. On top of that, you can also find markets for culture, politics, and more.

Kalshi lets you make “Yes” and “No” predictions for future outcomes and back them by purchasing shares. If your predictions are correct, you win a payout, and if not, you lose your outlay. However, the prices are set by the market and based on chance, and require equal counterparts to work, unlike traditional fixed-odds sports betting.

Kalshi Pros & Cons

Kalshi: Pros & Cons

• Regulated by the CFTC
• Wide range of political & macro event markets
• Clean, user-friendly trading interface

• Lower liquidity on some niche markets
• Not designed for high-frequency traders

What Is Kalshi?

Kalshi is a prediction markets site where you can trade on future outcomes covering everything from sports to the weather, climate, economy, and beyond. However, it differs quite a lot from traditional sports betting.

As with sports betting online, you can put your money on predictions and receive a payout if you are correct. As a result, there’s always a winning and a losing outcome.

However, instead of fixed odds with an added commission by the site, you can buy shares on “Yes” and “No” outcomes for the prediction market. The price of each share is always set between $0.01 and $1.00 and is based on the chance of the outcome happening.

For example, if the Red Wings had a 63% chance of winning against the Bruins, the share price for the “Yes” market would open at $0.63 and the “No” at $0.37. If you backed the correct prediction, the winning share price would be set to $1.00, giving you a profit.

Sports Promo

3.8/5

$10 Bonus

Welcome Offer

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18+, Other T&Cs Apply

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Open Kalshi

Kalshi Highlights

• Wins, spreads, props, and other sports prediction markets
• USA and global sports market coverage
• Offers prediction markets on college sports

Usability, Look, and Feel of the Kalshi Site

Trading on prediction markets will be a new concept to many of you, but I found the Kalshi website very user-friendly. You can easily browse all of the types of markets across the top of the screen, and each market contains an easy-to-follow infographic showing the history of market opinion and price movements.

Kalshi on Mobile

If you want to trade on mobile, Kalshi has a highly rated app that you can download from the App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android). The main difference between the app and the website is that the app defaults to the dark interface.

I’ve displayed the main properties of the two apps for you below:

Trade on mobile with the Kalshi mobile app

Enjoy a seamless prediction trading at Kalshi

How to Sign Up to Kalshi - Step-By-Step

To begin, let me show you how you can register and get verified on this sports prediction market site:

1. Visit - Click one of the banners on this page to load the Kalshi website in a new tab
2. Start - Click the “Sign Up” button
3. Register - Choose to sign up via Google, Apple, or email
4. Email - Enter your email address and hit “Continue”
5. Password - Create a secure password for your account login
6. Code - Enter the four-digit verification code that you should now receive via email
7. D.O.B - Enter your date of birth (you must be over 18 to trade on this site)
8. Referral - Add a referral code (optional)
9. Phone - Enter your US phone number
10. Verify - Verify your phone number with the six-digit SMS code
11. Details - Enter your full name and address
12. Submit - Submit the form to finish

Kalshi Sports Prediction Markets

Kalshi sports prediction markets cover everything from the NFL to college football, Premier League soccer, and more. You’ll find a lot of markets that are similar to traditional sports betting, including point spreads, win markets, totals, and more.

However, as we explained earlier, it works a bit differently from a traditional sportsbook. To participate, you can buy shares for a Yes/No prediction market. The three elements that you will see are the chance, the “Yes” share price, and the “No” share price.

To give you an example of what it looks like, here’s a straight win sports prediction market: Dallas at Detroit (NFL) Game Winner.

If Detroit were to win this game, the market on the bottom line would resolve to a “Yes” and the top one as a “No”. Had you bought “Yes” shares on Detroit for $0.61, you’d get $0.39 profit per share in the event of a “Yes” resolution ($1.00 - $0.61 = $0.39). On the other hand, if you had bought “No” shares on Detroit or “Yes” shares on Dallas, you’d lose your entire outlay.

Kalshi sports prediction market

Trade on the outcome of sports events at Kalshi

How Are the Sports Prediction Market Prices Set?

The prices of the sports prediction markets are determined by the market and the opinion of traders. This means that the chance percentage and the prices of the “Yes” and “No” Kalshi event contracts are usually a truer reflection compared to the fixed odds that you find at sportsbooks.

As the prices are market-assigned, Kalshi doesn’t add juice or a vig. Instead, it makes its money by charging a small fee on the expected profit of the contracts.

On the flip side, this means that every market needs an equal number of buyers and sellers for its work. Referring to the example above, you’d need an even number of people to buy shares for the “Yes” and “No” outcomes on Detroit to win the game for the market to go ahead.

How Does Kalshi Make Money on Your Trades?

Instead of protecting their profits by juicing the odds, Kalshi charges a small fee when you buy shares. This fee can vary and depends on the expected profit of the market should your prediction be correct.

As a result, the Kalshi fees can fluctuate greatly, but tend not to go over the 3.5% mark. However, this can often mean that small trades aren’t worth it.

If you are the first person to buy shares on a prediction market, or you create one, you will pay a reduced “Maker” fee. However, you need to wait for other people to buy or sell shares on the counter position in order for the trade to go ahead in this case.

How to Buy Shares for Sports Prediction Markets at Kalshi

The first thing that you need to do if you want to trade on prediction market outcomes at Kalshi is deposit funds, and we’ll show you how to do that below. Once you have funds in your account, there are two ways that you can buy shares:

• Contracts - The main way that you can buy shares for a sports prediction outcome is through contracts. The concept is pretty simple: you enter the number of contracts that you wish to buy, then pay the price plus the fee to execute the trade. For example, if you bought 100 contracts on Detroit “Yes” at $0.61 as listed above, you’d pay $61.00 plus the fee (100 x $0.61 = $61.00).
• Dollars - Instead of typing in the number of individual contracts, you can insert the number of dollars (USD) that you wish to spend, which is ideal if you have a specific maximum budget in mind. For example, if you want to spend just $50 on Detroit “Yes” shares, you could get 81.96 contracts.

Depositing Funds at Kalshi

You can deposit funds into your Kalshi account using bank transfer, debit cards, wire transfer, or crypto. The processing times, limits, and fees vary between payment methods, but debit cards incur the most notable charge.

All debit card deposits incur a 2% transaction fee. For example, if you were to deposit $100, just $98.00 would appear in your account after completing the transaction.

Here’s a quick summary of the key facts for each deposit method:

*Must be submitted before 4 pm ET to guarantee this processing time.

+ 2

Withdrawals at Kalshi

You can enjoy no-fee withdrawals with no limit if you use a bank transfer as your payment method. Crypto withdrawals are similar, but the blockchain processing fees will still apply. For debit cards, there’s a $2.00 flat fee, regardless of how much you wish to withdraw.

I’ve included all of the withdrawal information for you in the table below:

Other Types of Prediction Markets at Kalshi

Crypto prediction markets at Kalshi

Make climate predictions at Kalshi

The selection of prediction markets offered at Kalshi extends way beyond sports. You can participate in a range of future outcomes, covering the climate, economy, politics, crypto, and more. I’ve broken down some of the key market genres that are available for you below:

Crypto Prediction Markets at Kalshi

If I were to tell you that you can trade on crypto outcomes, you might think that I’m talking about the buying and selling of the currencies themselves. However, that’s not actually the case. Instead, you can trade on the future outcomes of events related to all things crypto, just like you can with sports.

You can find simple two-outcome markets, such as “Will Bitcoin Cross $100k Again This Year? Yes/No”. If you want to go more in-depth and have more outcomes to buy shares in, you can go for markets like “How High Will Bitcoin Get This Year?”.

For this type of market, there are multiple answers, ranging from $130k or above to $500k or above. Of course, if you think it’ll go even higher than that, you can make your own market and wait to see if someone buys the counterpart.

Kalshi Politics Predictions

Besides sports, political outcomes are among the most popular for users to trade on. Kalshi election predictions, particularly for the US election, have seen high uptake in the past. However, there are also markets covering foreign political events as well, including elections, leadership contests, and other events.

Here are a few examples of some election prediction markets I’ve found at Kalshi at the time of writing:

• Who will Trump nominate as Federal Reserve Chair?
• Who will be the president of Honduras this year?
• Democratic presidential nominee in 2028?
• Will a new UK general election be called this year?
• Will a date be announced for another Quebec referendum before 2029?

Culture Prediction Outcomes at Kalshi

This is probably the broadest prediction market category of all that you’ll find at Kalshi. Quite literally, the "Culture" tab contains markets on everything from video game release dates to Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB scores for upcoming blockbuster movies.

Below, I’ve categorized the common culture markets that you can trade on:

Kalshi Economics Predictions

When it comes to economics, you’ll find a diverse range of markets covering everything from oil and gas prices to rate cuts in the US this year. On a global level, you can buy shares for outcomes relating to the wealthiest person in the world or the GDP, or specific countries.

Alternatively, you can go more local and predict rent growth in LA this year. There are also novelty markets, such as the price of the hot dog combo at Costco.

Although they aren’t put under the “Economics” header, there are other economy-adjacent prediction markets, including “Companies” and “Financials”.

Climate Prediction Markets at Kalshi

Last but not least, I’d like to give you the lowdown on the climate prediction markets that I found on this trading platform. The markets that see the most trading and participation tend to be related to temperatures and rainfall in specific cities or states. However, there are global and long-term futures markets, such as India’s climate goals and the EV market share by 2030.

Customer Service at Kalshi - US-Based Support for Human Beings

If you want to actually get in contact with the customer support team at Kalshi, email is your only option. In my experience, responses weren’t always the quickest, but they did come from an actual human being and not AI. Moreover, the customer service team is based in the US, so you should receive quicker replies during ET working hours.

The Help Center

Before you reach out, I strongly recommend using the help center, which is powered by BitBook software and is very well-designed. There are a lot of support articles in there, which cover just about everything you could possibly need to know about Kalshi, how it operates, and the potential issues that you could run into.

You can search your issues by category using the sidebar, starting with the Kalshi 101introductory guide. If you have a specific issue, you can type some keywords into the search bar.

Kalshi Social Media

Another way that you can reach out to the brand via DM and get regular updates is via social media. Kalshi has a very strong online presence, and you can connect with them on the following five platforms:

• Discord
• Instagram
• X (Twitter)
• LinkedIn
• TikTok

Customer Service
Available Languages:	English
Email:	support@kalshi.com
Telephone:	(332) 205‑9910

Licensing and Security - Is Kalshi Legal in the USA?

As I have established throughout this review, Kalshi is not a traditional online sportsbook and does not offer any form of betting or gambling. It is designated as a Designated Contract Market (DCM). In other words, it’s a financial exchange where you can trade on future outcomes.

As a result, it’s governed by US federal law and is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Unlike online sportsbooks, individual state laws and gambling regulators have no authority over Kalshi's operations.

This means that, at the time of writing, trading on Kalshi is legal for residents aged 18+ in all 50 US states.

All that being said, I should point out that things are moving fast and that this could change at any time. So make sure to bookmark this page and check back in with us for updates.

Kalshi Incentive Programs - Volume and Liquidity

Kalshi doesn’t have a welcome offer to incentivize new trades at the moment; however, there are a couple of incentive programs for existing individual traders:

• Volume Incentive Program: This program runs throughout periods and isn’t always available, so check the latest dates in the help centre. When it is running, your eligible trades contribute towards the rewards pool, from which you can win a percentage based on your trades. For example, if you traded a total of $1,000 during the promotion period, and your rewards were 10%, you’d get $100.
• Liquidity Incentive Program: Like the Volume Incentive Program, this promotion runs periodically. Instead of sharing a trading volume, you can potentially get rewarded for placing resting orders, even if they don’t get fulfilled at the end of the day. Because this will help facilitate better prices for other traders, you’ll get a score for your tracked resting orders, which ultimately can win you a cash reward.

Try Out Trading on Various Prediction Markets When You Sign Up on Kalshi

To summarize, Kalshi is a trading platform where you can buy and sell shares on future outcomes for sports. Politics, economics, and more. The prices are set based on the probability that is reflected by market opinions, so you get a truer value than you would with fixed odds sports betting. On the other hand, every market needs an even number of counterparties, so your trades won’t always be executed. Moreover, you will have to pay a fee on every trade that you successfully make.

Do you want to give this a try and see why it’s changing the way that we participate in sports? You can access the site via one of the banners on this page and create your account today to get started.

Sports Promo

3.8/5

$10 Bonus

Welcome Offer

|

18+, Other T&Cs Apply

Copy

Open Kalshi

Kalshi Highlights

• Wins, spreads, props, and other sports prediction markets
• USA and global sports market coverage
• Offers prediction markets on college sports

Kalshi Review FAQ