Kalshi Review 2026: ActionTrust Rating & Full Breakdown

Want a brief rundown of the different areas we factored in when conducting our Kalshi review? Refer to the table below for the Kalshi key facts you need to know.

Action Network scores Kalshi a 9.5 out of 10, which grades as "Outstanding" according to our ActionTrust prediction markets framework.

Kalshi earns strong marks across the board for many reasons: broad market selection, federal regulatory standing, solid fund segregation, and unusually transparent bonus disclosure compared to competitors.

While not the end of the world, there are a couple of areas where Kalshi could improve, such as quicker live chat response times and offering more smaller, niche markets with somewhat stable liquidity. On the other hand, the latter is a common prediction market issue that isn't specific to Kalshi.

Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated financial exchange, also known as a "prediction market".

Instead of betting against "the house" like you would at a sportsbook, you trade event contracts peer-to-peer with other users. Contract outcomes are based on whether a real-world event will happen.

Kalshi doesn't use traditional sportsbook odds like -110 or +150.

Contracts are priced between 1¢ and 99¢, and that price reflects the market's implied probability.

For example, a contract trading at 60¢ implies a 60% chance of the event happening.

If you buy at 60¢ and the event occurs, your contract settles at $1, which is 40¢ profit. If it doesn't happen, the contract settles at $0 and you lose your 60¢ stake.

At Kalshi, you don't have to hold a position until the event ends.

If probabilities shift in your favor before resolution, you can sell your contract right then and lock in a profit, no waiting, and no bookmaker discretion over whether a cash-out is even offered.

Kalshi gives you two main ways to enter a trade, each with its own flexibility.

A Quick Order (also called a Market Order) fills instantly. You can place a market order in one-of-two ways:

• Buy in Dollars: Enter a cash amount (ex. $50) and Kalshi will use it to buy as many contracts as possible at the best available price.
• Buy in Shares: Trade an exact number of contracts (ex. 100) and Kalshi will instantly fill that quantity at the current market price.

A Limit Order works differently. You set the maximum price you're willing to pay per contract (say, 55¢) along with your quantity, and the order only fills if another trader matches your price.

Kalshi also offers Combo trades, which work similarly to a sportsbook parlay by combining multiple event outcomes into a single position.

Our guide to Kalshi Combo trades breaks down how they're built and priced.

Our team signed up for Kalshi by following these steps:

1. Tap Our Link and Create Account: Sign up with your email address or an existing Apple or Google account, entering promo code ACTION when prompted.
2. Verify your identity. Kalshi requires standard KYC verification before you can fund your account, since it operates under CFTC oversight.
3. Deposit funds. Add money via debit card, ACH, wire, or crypto (USDC).
4. Find a market and place a trade. Use a Quick Order to buy instantly, or a Limit Order to set your own price.

Yes, Kalshi is a legitimate, federally regulated financial exchange registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Designated Contract Market (DCM).  

Kalshi has the honor of being the first federally-regulated U.S. exchange built specifically for event contracts.

As such, Kalshi answers to a single federal regulator rather than a patchwork of state gaming commissions, which is how it legally operates in states like California and Texas where traditional sports betting isn't available.

Kalshi is also legal in states such as Florida, which is notable as Florida has a monopolistic sports betting industry.

By law, Kalshi must keep customer funds segregated from its own operating capital. Your funds are held in regulated custody rather than mixed with company assets.

Kalshi uses encryption, two-factor authentication, and strict KYC verification to protect accounts and user data.

The app can also be locked behind your phone's Face ID or passcode, adding a device-level layer of security on top of Kalshi's own account protections.

Every contract displays its resolution rules before you trade it, and markets settle using official third-party data sources rather than Kalshi's own discretion.

If a resolution is contested, Kalshi has a dispute process in place, an institutional-integrity standard you'd expect from a regulated exchange.

No, Kalshi is a financial exchange with several key factors differentiating it from a sports betting platform. Refer to the table below for a rundown of the key differences between Kalshi and traditional sportsbooks:

The current Kalshi promo code offer is Trade $25, Get up to $500!

See our Kalshi Promo Code guide for the full terms, the realistic payout odds, and how to claim the bonus.

The Kalshi site works well on laptops and mobile browsers alike, but many traders now opt to use the Kalshi app.

Kalshi has dedicated apps for both iOS and Android featuring a trading dashboard, portfolio view, and market discovery tools.

The Apple App Store and the Google Play Store version of the Kalshi app each have a 4.8/5.0 star rating. This is an especially impressive feat, as our team has noticed that the Android versions of prediction market apps typically tend to be subpar compared to the Apple versions.

Kalshi has clearly put effort into its apps to ensure that all users have a good experience.

Unlike some competitors that are mobile-only for U.S. users (we're looking at you, Polymarket), Kalshi offers a full website accessible via desktop or mobile browser.

While many traders prefer the Kalshi app, the browser version offers advanced features like complete order book visibility, charting, and portfolio analytics.

Kalshi's app leans into a personalized, almost social feel rather than a bare-bones order screen. For example, the "For You" tab displays markets tailored to your activity and the "Watchlist" tab lets you track contracts you're interested in without committing to a trade right away.

Further to this, there's a leaderboard displaying the platform's top traders as well as a "Social" tab, where you can track the activity of fellow traders and even build a following of your own.

The "Live" tab highlights all markets that are currently resolving, meaning it's done in real time. Traders looking for fast turnover can even dip into short-term crypto contracts that settle in as little as 15 minutes.

Lastly, "search" and "category" sorting make it easy to find a specific market rather than scrolling through hundreds of contracts. If you need inspiration, you can always check to see which markets have the highest trading volume.

Look to the table below for a full breakdown of Kalshi's pros and cons:

Kalshi's market selection is both large and diverse, which is one of its biggest differentiators from a traditional sportsbook and why it's considered one of the best prediction market apps available today.

Here are some of the different types of Kalshi markets you can expect to see!

Kalshi lists event contracts on game outcomes, player props, and season futures, with live trading available during games.

Kalshi was the first CFTC-regulated platform to allow election trading, covering congressional, presidential, and policy outcomes. The "2028 Democratic presidential nominee" is the current market to watch, but users can trade on everything from local to international elections.

Trade on Fed rate decisions, inflation reports, jobs data, and GDP. Some traders use these markets to hedge against broader portfolio risk.

If you're looking for something more light and fun to trade on, check out the entertainment and culture markets at Kalshi. You can buy/sell event contracts tied to box office projections, music chart milestones, celebrity news, and even the outcome of reality TV shows like Love Island.

Trade on daily temperature forecasts (verified against National Weather Service data) and hurricane predictions.

Kalshi also offers CFTC-regulated perpetual futures on crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, letting you trade price movement without owning the underlying asset.

Unlike standard event contracts, perpetuals have no expiration date, and some crypto contracts settle in windows as short as 15 minutes for traders who want rapid turnover.

⚠️ Note: Leverage carries real risk: perpetual futures allow directional (long/short) trading with leverage, which means your position can be liquidated if the market moves against you.

Yes, Kalshi has fees. Fortunately, Kalshi only charges a fee once a trade has actually executed. If you cancel an order before it fills, nothing is owed.

Since Kalshi fees are charged the moment a trade happens, and not when it resolves, players are not affected by whether a trade wins or loses. Which fee you pay depends on how your order fills: immediately (taker fees), or later once it rests on the books (maker fees).

Read on for a full breakdown of each type of Kalshi fee.

If your order matches immediately against one already sitting on the books, you pay the "trading fee" (also called a "taker fee").

This fee isn't a flat percentage, it's calculated from the contract's price. Contracts priced near 50¢ carry the highest fee, since that's where the outcome is most uncertain. Contracts near the extremes (1¢ or 99¢), where the result is nearly a sure thing, carry the lowest fee.

That might seem backwards at first, but the fee is sized to the trade's uncertainty rather than the trader's confidence. A 50¢ contract represents a trade where both sides disagree the most about the outcome, the most active price discovery happening on the platform. A 99¢ contract means the market has essentially already decided the outcome, so there's very little real uncertainty left in that trade.

Here's what the taker fee looks like at a few different contract prices:

If your order rests on the books and someone else's order fills it later, you pay the "maker fee" instead. It’s essentially a smaller version of the same fee.

Maker fees are cheaper because resting orders add liquidity to the market, giving other traders something to trade against, while an immediate order consumes that liquidity instead. Charging less for providing liquidity is a common incentive across exchanges, so it’s not unique to Kalshi.

The maker fee uses the same uncertainty-based logic as the taker fee, just at roughly a quarter of the rate which is about 1.75% versus 7%. A maker fee at 50¢ is still higher than one at 10¢ or 90¢, for the same reason the taker fee is.

For any single trade, there's always one taker and one maker on opposite sides, so both fees get charged in that trade, just to two different accounts. You never pay both fees on the same fill.

Here are a few examples of what the maker fee is for different contract prices. Keep in mind that Kalshi rounds every fee up to the nearest cent, and all three of those raw amounts in the second column are under a penny. The maker fee per 100 contracts paints a better picture of how maker fees vary at different contract prices.

Kalshi doesn’t have membership fees or settlement fees, taker and maker fees are the only trading costs. Note that a handful of specialty markets (like S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 contracts) use a reduced rate.

Deposit and withdrawal fees are separate from trading fees, see the banking section below for those.

Kalshi supports several different payment methods, but options can vary depending on if you wish to make a deposit or a withdrawal. Look to the table below for more information on each Kalshi payment method.

🚨 Weekend Note: ACH withdrawals only process on banking days, cash out late Friday and your withdrawal won't start processing until Monday.

🔒 Security Holds: Kalshi places temporary holds on newly deposited funds before they're available for withdrawal. Debit/Apple Pay/Google Pay deposits typically clear for withdrawal once they settle to the same method, while ACH deposits clear two business days after settlement. Realized trading profits aren't subject to these holds and remain withdrawable immediately.

Here's how Kalshi stacks up against two other major prediction market apps, we have compared it to Polymarket and FanDuel Predicts.

Kalshi's election and policy markets give them a firm edge over FanDuel Predicts, which currently only covers sports, culture, financials, and crypto.

Kalshi's biggest structural edge over Polymarket is browser access, as Polymarket's U.S. platform is mobile-only whereas Kalshi offers both. Kalshi also settles directly in USD, while Polymarket converts deposits internally to its own stablecoin (even though funding your account itself doesn't require a crypto wallet on either platform).

See our full Kalshi vs. Polymarket comparison for a deeper breakdown.

Technically, Kalshi is available in all 50 states, but promo eligibility and the availability of certain contracts is limited because of ongoing state challenges to Kalshi.

State-specific legality can shift as court cases involving Kalshi develop. Stay tuned for updates!

Kalshi's institutional backing has put its markets directly in front of mainstream audiences.

Robinhood now offers Kalshi's event contracts inside its own app, letting existing brokerage users trade prediction markets without opening a new account.

CNN designated Kalshi its official prediction markets partner, integrating real-time probability data into its on-air political and macro coverage.

Kalshi also powers "Picks"-style markets for platforms like PrizePicks Predict, Sleeper Markets, and Plus500, and partnered with ADI Predictstreet during the 2026 World Cup for audience expansion.

Here are some key Kalshi dates over the years:

• November 2020: CFTC grants Kalshi Designated Contract Market (DCM) status
• July 2021: Kalshi publicly launches
• September 2024: Wins a federal court ruling affirming its right to offer political event contracts
• January 2025: Launches sports event contracts
• February 2025: Robinhood integration begins with Super Bowl LIX event contracts
• December 2025: CNN partnership announced
• May–June 2026: CFTC approves perpetual futures for Kalshi, and the operator launches its first Bitcoin perpetual futures contract
• June 2026: Kalshi announced its partnership with ADI Predictstreet for the 2026 World Cup

Kalshi issues Form 1099-B, treating gains and losses as capital transactions rather than gambling income.

That's different from a traditional sportsbook, which reports winnings on Form W-2G, the distinction can affect how you offset losses at tax time.

We recommend consulting a tax professional for guidance specific to your situation.

Kalshi builds several responsible trading tools into the platform to support healthy trading habits.

Tools include:

• Trading breaks
• Time and trade limits
• Deposit limits
• Voluntary self-exclusion
• Educational guides
• Confidential professional support through Birches Health

For account security, Kalshi defaults to Face ID on supported devices, requests selfie verification for higher-risk accounts, and uses two-factor authentication and an ID Check feature to help prevent minor access.

Two newer features add extra layers of accountability:

• Inner Circle: lets family or friends view your trading activity for real-time accountability
• Health Check: offers deposit limit recommendations based on your account activity

Kalshi offers 24/7 support, though the fastest path for most issues is self-service.

Also, you'll need to verify your account before a live agent can help you, so it's worth completing KYC early rather than waiting until you need support. You don't have to have a balance to receive live support, but unfortunately there is no phone support.