Kalshi election betting contracts multiply after court win

Prediction marketplace Kalshi has certified more than a dozen event contracts tied to United States political outcomes since prevailing in a landmark court battle in September, according to regulatory filings reviewed by Cointelegraph. 

The event contracts — winner-take-all financial derivatives known as binary options  — are the first in the US to let traders bet on election outcomes. 

They address everything from the November US presidential election to Senate races, cabinet appointments, and even New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s possible resignation.

As of Oct. 16, Kalshi’s flagship market — “Who will win the Presidential election?” — has bootstrapped $14 million in total betting volume since listing on Oct. 7, according to Kalshi’s website. 

Kalshi event contracts. Source: Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Related: Kalshi US election betting live after court win

Kalshi, a US-regulated exchange, still greatly lags behind Polymarket, a decentralized prediction marketplace on the Polygon network.

Polymarket has hosted nearly $2 billion in bets tied to the US presidential race, according to its website.

Launched in 2020, Polymarket rose to prominence in 2024 as a permissionless venue for betting on US election outcomes . 

In November 2023, Kalshi sued the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US derivatives regulator, for trying to block the exchange from listing political event contracts. 

Kalshi prevailed in a September court ruling and again on Oct. 2, when a federal appeals court affirmed Kalshi’s September win.  

The CFTC said election prediction markets such as Kalshi threaten the integrity of elections, but industry analysts argue they often capture public sentiment more accurately than polls. 

Bloomberg is adding election odds data from Polymarket. Source: Bloomberg

“Event contract markets are a valuable public good for which there is no evidence of significant manipulation or widespread use for any nefarious purposes that the Commission alleges,” Harry Crane, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, said in an August comment letter filed with the CFTC.

In August, Bloomberg LP, the financial data and news service, added Polymarket’s election odds data to its Terminal.

Bloomberg Terminal is the world’s most popular institutional financial data platform. It controls approximately one-third of the market share for financial data services, according to Wall Street Prep. 

As of Oct. 16, Kalshi pegs Republican nominee Donald Trump’s odds of winning the election at 55%, versus 45% for Democratic rival Kamala Harris. 

Polymarket’s bettors are even more bullish on Trump, pegging his odds at 58% versus less than 41% for Harris. 

Polymarket also includes low-probability outcomes, such as a third-party candidate winning in November. 

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