Kalshi

Kalshi is the first — and currently only — CFTC-regulated prediction market operator in the United States. The platform was founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara and went fully operational in 2021 after a lengthy regulatory approval process. Users can trade binary "Yes/No" contracts on the outcome of real-world events, from Federal Reserve interest rate decisions and monthly CPI releases to election outcomes, entertainment industry events, and weather conditions. Contracts are priced between $0.01 and $0.99 and resolve to $1.00 if the event occurs, $0.00 if it doesn't — the price at any given moment effectively reflects the market's collective probability estimate.

The platform operates under CFTC oversight as a Designated Contract Market (DCM), which gives it meaningful advantages over offshore competitors like Polymarket: U.S. residents can legally participate, funds are held in segregated accounts at regulated clearinghouses, and Kalshi is subject to continuous regulatory examination. Kalshi earns revenue through transaction fees, typically in the 2–7% range depending on contract type and trade size, with reduced fees for high-volume traders. The platform has expanded its contract catalog significantly since launch, and in October 2024 — following a years-long legal battle with the CFTC — Kalshi won a federal court ruling permitting it to list election-related contracts, opening up a new and highly liquid category of political event markets.