A sportsbook tells you the odds. It will never tell you whether odds like those have actually been paying. We can, because we write the price of every sports market down before the game, archive how it settles, and join the two. Below: the live board, each market scored against that record, and the record itself.
Measured, not asserted
Sports favourites are priced about right.
Across 1,761 settled sports markets priced 75c and up, the price implied 84.3% and they actually won 84.3%. That is close enough that there is no free money in simply backing favourites, and anyone selling you a "fade the public" system on this exchange is selling you something we cannot find in the data.
“Worth” is what settled sports markets in the same price band actually paid, with Kalshi’s taker fee already deducted. It is a statement about this kind of contract, not a forecast of this particular game: a band average does not know that your quarterback is injured. Markets we cannot price honestly say so rather than being quietly filled with a guess. Full method on the Fair Value Board.
What a sports price has actually been worth
Every settled sports market we recorded a pre-game price for, grouped by that price. 9,767 observations and counting.
Price paid
Implied
Actually won
Gap
Sample
0-9c
5%
6.3%
+1.3
742
10-19c
15%
13.3%
-1.7
1,051
20-29c
25%
24.7%
-0.3
1,205
30-39c
35%
33.1%
-1.9
1,254
40-49c
45%
41.4%
-3.6
1,564
50-59c
55%
53.5%
-1.5
1,317
60-69c
65%
64.8%
-0.2
873
70-79c
75%
76.5%
+1.5
677
80-89c
85%
85.2%
+0.2
532
90-99c
95%
93.1%
-1.9
552
Read the grey gaps as zero. A gap is only coloured when it is bigger than the fee you would pay at that price, because an edge smaller than the fee is not an edge, it is a donation with extra steps. That single rule is why this table is shorter on claims than most of the internet.
The fan tax
Betting your team, every game, at whatever the price is, has cost about 2.2¢ per contract on this exchange.
Measured, not moralised: across 3,951 settled sports markets priced 50¢ and up, buying blind paid the price-versus-reality gap (0.5¢) plus the average taker fee (1.7¢) on every contract. That is the cost of the habit, in cents, before your team even tips off. Three ways to shrink it without loving your team any less: rest a limit order instead of hitting the ask (the fee on a filled resting order is zero), check the price against the record first with the free checker, and when you do buy, size it like an estimate rather than a certainty, which the checker now does for you. Loyalty is free at kickoff. It only costs money at the ask.
The thing a sportsbook will not let you do
Four legs in, one to go? Do not sweat it. Lock it.
On a sportsbook, a parlay with four legs home and one to go is a coin flip you are forced to watch. On an exchange it is not: you can bet against your own last leg and walk away a winner whichever way it lands. Almost nobody does, and most take the discounted cash-out instead. We compute the exact hedge, and the exact amount the cash-out is short-changing you.
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Common questions
Are Kalshi sports markets accurate?
We measure it rather than guess. We record the price of a sports market before the game, archive what it settled at, and join the two. The measured curve on this page shows what each price band actually settled at across our record of settled sports markets. The short version: prices are broadly sensible, with the familiar human bias at the extremes, and the fee matters more than most traders think.
Is Kalshi better than a sportsbook?
They are different products. A sportsbook prices with a built-in margin (the vig) and can limit or ban a winning bettor. Kalshi is an exchange: you trade against other people, the house takes a fee rather than a spread, and nobody closes your account for winning. The fee is real though, and on a coin-flip market it is at its highest, which is what our fee tooling is for.
What does Kalshi charge on a sports trade?
The taker fee is roughly 7 percent of price times one-minus-price, rounded up to the next cent, which peaks near 50c and shrinks toward the extremes. Resting orders that get filled pay no fee at all. That single fact is worth more than most strategy content: patience is literally cheaper than impatience here.
Can I parlay on Kalshi?
Not as a native product, but you can build the equivalent yourself by holding several contracts at once, and unlike a sportsbook parlay you can exit any leg at any time. That optionality is worth real money: when most legs have landed, you can often hedge the last one and lock a guaranteed profit rather than sweating it.
Are sports markets on Kalshi legal?
Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange and its event contracts, including sports, are traded on that basis. Their legal status has been contested in several states and the picture keeps moving, so treat any single claim about legality as a snapshot rather than settled law, and check your own state.