Kalshi Guide 2026

Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated prediction-market exchange. Instead of a house posting a line, traders buy and sell YES and NO contracts on real-world outcomes through an order book. Every contract is priced somewhere between 1¢ and 99¢ and settles at either $1 or $0, so the price reads directly as an implied probability.

That structure changes the economics. There is no vig baked into a two-sided line — you pay exchange fees on the trade instead — and because there is a live book you can sell a position before settlement rather than riding it to the end. It also changes the regulatory picture: Kalshi operates as a federally regulated exchange rather than under state gaming licences, and sports-event contracts remain the subject of ongoing litigation with some state regulators.

We trade a small real Kalshi book ourselves and publish every position with a timestamp, graded in public. The guides below cover the mechanics, the sign-up offer, the legal framing and how the exchange stacks up against traditional sportsbooks.