What Kalshi actually is
Kalshi is a Designated Contract Market (DCM) regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That's the same regulator that oversees oil futures and interest-rate swaps. Unlike a sportsbook, Kalshi is not your counterparty — it runs an order book where traders take opposite sides of binary YES/NO contracts on real-world events.
How a contract gets listed
Every Kalshi market is approved by the CFTC and tied to a specific, verifiable source of truth (a BLS release, an NHC advisory, a Nielsen rating). The market spec defines exactly when it resolves YES and when it resolves NO — ambiguity is what gets contracts rejected during review.
How prices form
Prices live between $0.01 and $0.99. The price IS the implied probability: a contract at $0.62 means the market thinks the event is ~62% likely. Order flow moves the price the same way any other CLOB-driven market works — bids lift the ask, offers hit the bid.
Settlement and payout
When the underlying event resolves, the winning side gets $1.00 per contract in USD and the losing side gets $0. Funds clear into your Kalshi balance and can be withdrawn via ACH. There's no rolling expiry, no margin call — your downside is exactly what you paid.
Fees
Kalshi charges a small per-contract fee that scales with the price and is published openly. There's no spread mark-up on top of the order book and no withdrawal fee for standard ACH.