Pick a Kalshi trader worth copying
Profit alone picks the wrong traders. One lucky longshot can put an account on top of a monthly board, and a trader who wins nine bets in ten at 95 cents can give the month back on the tenth. That is why the table above shows only A and B grades. The grade is the lowest win rate the trader's last 90 days support with 95% confidence, so it rises with accuracy and with the number of settled bets behind it: thirty wins from forty bets grades higher than five from five.
Before you hand a trader to the bot, check four things on their profile:
- Settled bets. Hundreds of settled bets in the kind of market you want to copy say far more than one big month on a handful.
- The price they pay. A trader buying at 90 cents needs to win nine times in ten to break even. A trader buying at 40 cents can lose most bets and still finish ahead. The profile shows their average entry.
- Where they win. The profile splits the record by category and sport. A trader who prints money on the NBA and gives it back on Bitcoin is an NBA trader.
- The replay at your size. Every profile replays copying the trader at $25, $100 or $250 a bet over the last 7, 30 or 90 days. If the replay at your stake does not work, the bot will not either.
The full ranking of named Kalshi traders, by sport and by period, is on the Kalshi leaderboard, and the day's largest single bets are on biggest Kalshi bets today.
The bot trades on your Kalshi account and never ours
A Rivo bot is non-custodial. You connect your own Kalshi API key, it is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, and every order the bot places is placed by your key on your account. There is no Rivo balance to top up, no pooled wallet, and no path by which Rivo can move your money out. Disconnecting the key in settings wipes it and stops execution immediately.
Kalshi issues per-user API keys precisely so a copy bot never needs your deposit. The bot holds the permission to place orders and nothing more.
The bot earns a record before it spends
Every bot starts on paper. It fills against real Kalshi trades as they happen, marks open positions against live prices, and is scored once those markets settle. You are looking at what copying the trader did on the trades that actually happened since you started, which is the honest basis for turning real money loose on it. How paper orders fill on Kalshi is covered in Kalshi paper trading.
When the record justifies it, the same bot is handed to live execution without being rewritten. Results on paper are not a promise of results live: entry prices drift, fills are not guaranteed, and a trader can stop winning.
What the bot will and will not do
- It can follow the trader out. With “Sell when the trader sells” on, the bot sells what it bought when the trader sells. Kalshi does not show whether a sale closed or trimmed a position, so any sale by the trader sells the bot's whole share. Standing stop-loss, take-profit and trailing rules are a separate feature you arm per position.
- Two ceilings, both yours. A maximum per copy and a maximum per day. The bot stops at both. Presets start at $5 per trade against a $25 daily ceiling.
- It skips rather than chases. A trade that has aged past the copy window, or a market whose price has already effectively decided the outcome, is skipped and logged with the reason.
- It stops itself. Three consecutive execution failures pause the bot. Market conditions such as a thin book do not count toward that.
- Every decision is logged, including the skips. The copy log records why a trade was not copied, which is the only way to answer that question honestly.
What copying a Kalshi trader costs
The bot is part of the Rivo subscription at $9 a week or $15 a month, with no charge per bot and no cut of your trades. Kalshi's own trading fees apply to every copy and are paid to Kalshi. The other cost is the price: when a whale clears the order book the price moves, so a copy of a large order fills a little higher than the original. Compare your fill with theirs in the copy log, and keep copies small relative to the market until you know how it trades.
Where the bot trades live
A live bot executes on Kalshi through your own API key, on Polymarket US through your own connected Polymarket US account, and on Gemini through your own connected Gemini account. Global Polymarket is fully covered everywhere else in the product, including the live feed, trader records, alerts, backtests and paper bots, and its bots run on paper. What happens in the seconds after a copied trade prints is covered on live bots.
Build a signal instead of copying a person
A copy bot follows a trader. A signal bot follows a kind of trade, whoever places it: every large NFL buy under 60 cents, say, or every Kalshi trade on a Fed decision. Both are built in the same builder, and the Kalshi trading bot page covers signals and market bots.
Drive a bot from code or an agent
Every bot is available through the Rivo REST API and the MCP server on the same account. Keys carry read, write or trade scopes, a live bot needs the trade scope plus an explicit confirmation on the call, every order defaults to a dry run, and a per-key daily spend cap fails closed. The developer documentation covers the endpoints and the tools.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Kalshi copy trading bot?
A Kalshi copy trading bot watches the trades of the Kalshi traders you choose and opens the same side of the same contract on your own account, automatically. In Rivo you pick the trader, replay copying them at your size, run the bot on paper, then switch it to live through your own Kalshi API key.
Who are the best Kalshi traders to copy?
The table at the top of this page lists them: the month's most profitable named Kalshi traders with an A or B copy grade, and what copying each one at $100 a bet returned over the last 90 days. It is rebuilt every hour from Rivo's record of their trades.
Does Rivo hold my money to run the bot?
No. A live bot places orders through your own Kalshi API key, which you connect in settings and can revoke at any time. The key is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM and is wiped when you disconnect. Your funds stay in your Kalshi account, Rivo cannot withdraw them, and there is no Rivo wallet to fund.
How fast does the bot copy a trade?
Followed traders are routed onto a dedicated fast lane the moment their fill appears in the Kalshi feed, and a copy is placed within seconds. Anything older than the age window is skipped rather than chased, because a copy at a materially different price is a different trade.
How much does the bot risk per trade?
Exactly what you tell it to. Every live bot carries a maximum per copy and a maximum per day, and it stops at both. Presets start at $5 per trade with a $25 daily ceiling. You can pause a live bot from its page at any time, and three consecutive execution failures pause it for you.
Can I test a bot before it spends real money?
Yes, and the product is built around doing it in that order. A bot first runs on paper, filling against real Kalshi trades as they happen and getting scored when the markets settle. When the record justifies it, the same bot is switched to live execution without being rewritten.
Does the bot sell for me too?
It can. With "Sell when the trader sells" on, the bot sells what it bought when the trader sells, and any sale by the trader sells the bot's whole share. Standing stop-loss, take-profit and trailing rules are a separate feature you arm per position.
Is copy trading available on Polymarket?
Yes, on Polymarket US. Polymarket is fully covered for the live feed, trader records, alerts, backtests and paper bots, and live bots run on Polymarket US through your own connected Polymarket US account. The builder shows the live venues available for your bot.
Can I drive a bot from my own code or from an AI agent?
Yes. The same bots live behind the Rivo REST API and the MCP server, on a key scoped to read, write or trade. A live bot needs a trade-scoped key and an explicit confirmation on every call, orders default to a dry run, and a per-key daily spend cap fails closed.