How does Kalshi work?

Kalshi lets you buy Yes or No contracts on the outcome of a real event. A contract usually costs between 1 and 99 cents. If your side wins, each contract pays $1.00. If it loses, you get nothing. The price doubles as the odds: Yes at 70 cents means traders put the chance near 70%. Kalshi runs the exchange and takes a fee on each trade, and other traders set the prices.

This guide walks through a full trade, the order book, what moves prices, how settlement works, what you pay, and the habits of the traders who win. We track named Kalshi traders at Rivo, so the last sections use real numbers from settled markets.

Kalshi in 60 seconds

• Every market asks a yes or no question with a deadline.
• Yes plus No always equals $1.00.
• The price is the crowd's probability.
• You buy from other traders, not from Kalshi.
• You can sell any time before the market closes.
• Winning contracts pay $1.00 at settlement, usually within three hours of the result.
• The fee tops out at 1.75 cents a contract, on a 50 cent price.

A Kalshi trade from start to finish

Take the market "Will the high in New York top 80 degrees on Friday?" Yes trades at 30 cents. You buy 50 Yes contracts for $15.00. The taker fee adds $0.74 (0.07 x 50 x 0.30 x 0.70, rounded up). Your total cost is $15.74.

Three things to notice. The most you can lose is what you paid. The most you can collect is $1.00 a contract. And your best trade often ends before the event, when the price moves your way and you sell.

What a Kalshi price means

A price of 30 cents means the market thinks the event has about a 30% chance. If you think the true chance is 45%, Yes at 30 cents looks cheap. Each contract costs 30 cents and pays $1.00 in 45% of outcomes, so it's worth 45 cents to you. Your edge is that 15 cent gap, minus fees.

Buying No at 70 cents is the same position as selling Yes at 30. Kalshi matches Yes buyers against No buyers, so both sides of the table trade on one book. For a longer walk through odds and spreads, read reading prediction market odds.

Who sets Kalshi prices

Other traders. Kalshi runs a central limit order book. Every order is a price and a size. When a Yes buyer at 30 cents meets a No buyer at 70 cents, a trade prints. Kalshi collects the fee and holds the collateral. It never bets against you.

• Market order: takes the best price on the book right now. You pay the taker fee.
• Limit order: names your price and waits on the book. If someone fills your resting order, you're the maker, and most series charge makers nothing.
• Price steps: most markets move in 1 cent steps. Many use 0.1 cent steps below 10 cents and above 90 cents.
• Size: whole contracts in the app. The API also takes fractional contracts in steps of 0.01.

What we think: use limit orders on anything with a wide spread. On a thin market with a 4 cent gap between the best bid and ask, a market order gives up 4 cents on entry and 4 more on exit.

What moves a Kalshi price

• News: an injury report, a poll, a CPI print or a forecast update.
• Big trades: a large buyer walks up the book and drags the price with them. Rivo's Kalshi whale tracker shows these as they print.
• Time: as a deadline nears with nothing happening, Yes on "will X happen by Friday" drifts toward zero.
• Other venues: the same question often trades on Polymarket and Gemini. When prices drift apart, traders move money across. See prediction market arbitrage.

How Kalshi settles a market

Every market comes with written rules, a rules summary and a named source. When the event ends, Kalshi's markets team checks that source and settles the market.

• Most markets settle within about three hours of the outcome.
• Combos settle 1 to 12 hours after the last leg finishes.
• A few markets settle at a fair value or a split when the rules say so.
• Full contract terms sit on file with the CFTC for each series.

What we think: read the rules tab before any market built on a person or a statistic. "Will the player score" and "will the player record a touchdown" can settle differently if the player sits out. Most settlement fights on Reddit start with a trader who skipped the rules. More on resolution in how prediction market resolution works.

What can you trade on Kalshi

Kalshi listed 14,399 series on September 27, 2026. They fall into these groups:

• Sports: NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, college football, soccer, tennis, UFC and esports. Games, spreads, totals, player props, awards and futures.
• Politics and elections: races, control of Congress, policy outcomes.
• Economics: Fed rate decisions, CPI, payrolls, GDP.
• Financials: S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 ranges.
• Crypto: Bitcoin, Ether and 15 minute markets on XRP, DOGE, SOL and others.
• Weather and climate: daily highs in major cities.
• Culture, tech and mentions: award shows, product launches, and words said on air.
• Combos: parlays of two or more legs. See Kalshi parlays explained.
• Perpetual futures: a separate margin product with its own account and fee filings.

Where you live decides part of this menu. Court orders geofence sports in Nevada and Michigan and most categories in Washington. Check yours on the location checker.

What Kalshi costs

The taker fee is round up(0.07 x contracts x price x (1 - price)). The fee peaks at 50 cents and shrinks toward the edges.

Longshots pay the most as a share of your stake. Tiny orders lose the most to rounding. Deposits by ACH and wire are free, cards charge up to 2%, and every withdrawal is free. The full schedule, maker fees and series multipliers sit in Kalshi fees explained.

Kalshi pays interest on open positions

Kalshi pays a 3.25% variable APY on cash and on collateral in open positions, for US accounts with at least $250. A futures bet at a sportsbook earns nothing while you wait. On Kalshi, a $1,000 position on a race six months out earns about $16 in interest before it settles.

Kalshi compared with a sportsbook and with Polymarket

Polymarket runs the same contract model with different custody and resolution. See how does Polymarket work and Kalshi vs Polymarket.

Three more Kalshi trades worked through

An economics market

"Will the Fed cut rates at the December meeting?" trades at 62 cents Yes. You think the jobs data points to a cut and buy 200 Yes for $124.00 plus a $3.30 fee (0.07 x 200 x 0.62 x 0.38, rounded up). The Fed cuts. You collect $200.00, a profit of $72.70.

A sports exit before the final whistle

You buy 100 No on a team to win at 45 cents, a cost of $45.00 plus $1.74 in fees. At halftime the team trails by 14 and No trades at 80 cents. You sell for $80.00 minus a $1.12 fee. Profit: $32.14, locked in before the second half starts. If the team comes back, it doesn't matter to you anymore.

A longshot

You buy 500 Yes at 4 cents on an upset, $20.00 plus a $1.35 fee (0.07 x 500 x 0.04 x 0.96, rounded up). The fee is 6.75% of your stake. If the upset lands, you collect $500.00. If it misses, you lose $21.35. Longshots pay big when they hit, but the fee takes a bigger bite every time.

Beginner mistakes on Kalshi

• Treating price as a prediction you agree with. Yes at 70 cents isn't a good buy just because you expect Yes. It only pays off over time if the true chance beats 70%.
• Market orders on thin books. You pay the spread twice, on entry and on exit.
• Skipping the rules tab. Timing, sources and edge cases decide payouts.
• Holding everything to settlement. Selling a winner early often beats waiting on a coin flip for the last few cents.
• Many tiny orders. Rounding turns a 1.75 cent fee into 2 cents on every single contract order.
• Copying a big win without checking the record. One lucky trade says little. Look for dozens of settled trades.
• Funding by card. Up to 2% on the deposit, before the first trade.

How the best Kalshi traders win

Kalshi shows some traders by name through public profiles. Rivo records their trades and scores each one when the market settles. On September 27, 2026, the top 200 on the Kalshi leaderboard showed three patterns:

• They win less than half the time. The median win rate across the top 200 sat at 46%.
• Price beats hit rate. icyade ranked third with 254 wins and 334 losses and a profit near $171,000. Buying cheap sides with a small edge adds up.
• Size follows conviction. The leader, hudson1234, went 54 and 13 on settled markets and made about $351,000 on roughly $463,000 traded.

Together the top 200 made about $7.9 million on $121.7 million traded, a return near 6.5% on money put to work. Kalshi rewards patience and price discipline, not hot streaks.

Where Rivo fits

Rivo is not an exchange and never holds your money. It's a $15 a month terminal on top of Kalshi, Polymarket, Polymarket US and Gemini. Your Kalshi account, balance and positions stay at Kalshi.

• See the flow: the whale tape shows large Kalshi trades as they print.
• Check the trader: every named Kalshi trader gets a profit curve, win rate against the odds paid and results by bet size.
• Test before you trade: replay a trader or a signal at your size on settled markets.
• Copy on autopilot: a Kalshi copy trading bot places entries through your own Kalshi API key, inside per-trade and daily limits. The key has no withdrawal rights.
• Trade from one ticket: Rivo's order ticket walks the Kalshi book and shows the exact fee before you send.
• Build from code: the Rivo API, SSE streams and MCP server cover every venue with one key. For Kalshi's own API, read the Kalshi API guide.

Your first week on Kalshi

1. Deposit by ACH or wire to skip card fees.
2. Pick one category you follow closely, such as weather in your city or one league.
3. Place limit orders, not market orders.
4. Read the rules tab on every market before you buy.
5. Keep each position small enough to lose without stress.
6. Write down the price you paid and your reason. Check both at settlement.
7. Watch what the named winners buy on the Kalshi leaderboard before you copy anyone.

Wondering whether Kalshi is a safe place for your money? Read is Kalshi legit. Ready to cash out? Read how to withdraw from Kalshi.

Frequently asked questions