What is Kalshi?
Kalshi is the first CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange in the US. Traders buy yes/no contracts on real-world events (Fed decisions, elections, weather, sports) that pay $1 if the event happens and $0 if it doesn't.
Resources
Short guides, curated links, a glossary and FAQ for Kalshi, event contracts and US sportsbooks.
Short guides
Kalshi vs sportsbooks
Sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel are the counterparty to every bet and bake margin into the odds. Kalshi is an exchange — you trade peer-to-peer with the exchange taking a small per-contract fee.
How event contracts settle
Each contract has a precisely defined source of truth. At resolution, the YES side gets $1 per contract and the NO side gets $0. Funds clear in USD.
Reading a status page
A green dot means an endpoint is reachable. It does not guarantee deposits, withdrawals, KYC, or geolocation are healthy — those run on internal systems we can't probe from a browser.
Why CORS limits browser checks
Most sportsbooks don't return permissive CORS headers, so browser checks confirm DNS/TCP/TLS handshake — not the actual JSON response. That's why we report reachability, not full health.
Curated links
Official status pages
Docs & APIs
Communities
Glossary
- Event contract
- A binary YES/NO contract paying $1 if a real-world event happens and $0 if it doesn't.
- Exchange (CFTC DCM)
- A Designated Contract Market regulated by the CFTC — Kalshi is the only one listing prediction-style event contracts.
- Sportsbook
- An operator that posts odds and takes the other side of every bet, baking margin (the vig) into the price.
- Vig / juice
- The implied house edge in sportsbook odds.
- DFS
- Daily Fantasy Sports — contests where users build lineups for a single slate of games.
- CLOB
- Central Limit Order Book — the matching engine used by exchanges.
- AMM
- Automated Market Maker — alternative to a CLOB where prices come from a pool formula.
- CFTC
- Commodity Futures Trading Commission — US federal regulator for futures, swaps and event contracts.
- KYC
- Know Your Customer — identity verification required before you can trade or withdraw.
- Geolocation
- The location check sportsbooks run on every bet to confirm you're in a regulated state.
- Microbetting
- Wagering on small in-game events (next pitch, next drive) rather than the final outcome.
- Peer-to-peer exchange
- A platform where users post and take wagers against each other (e.g. ProphetX).
- Settlement
- The final resolution of a contract or bet against a defined source of truth.
- Liquidity
- How much volume is available to trade without moving the price.
- Slippage
- The difference between the expected price and the price actually filled.
FAQ
Is Kalshi legal in the US?
Yes — Kalshi is regulated by the CFTC and is available in all 50 US states.
Are sportsbooks legal everywhere in the US?
No. State-by-state legalization is a patchwork; each operator restricts you based on your geolocation.
What's the difference between Kalshi and Polymarket?
Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated US exchange settling in USD. Polymarket is a crypto-based exchange settling in USDC on Polygon and is generally not available to US users.
Why does this site show reachable but the official status page says incident?
Browser checks only see whether public endpoints respond. Internal systems can be degraded while public front-ends remain reachable.
Do you place trades or hold funds?
No. kalshi.health is read-only — we run public reachability checks and link out to each platform.