Every Kalshi take, “just buy heavy favorites,” “fade the hype longshots,” is a testable claim. The Lab tests it: pick a side, a price band, and a category, and it replays the rule against real settled outcomes at our recorded pre-event prices, with taker fees included. Win rate, ROI, equity curve, sample size, no cherry-picking possible.
We record prices across the most-traded Kalshi markets daily and harvest settled outcomes as they land. Each backtest matches your rule against every settled market whose recorded price, roughly 24 hours before the event, fell in your band, then settles one contract per market at the actual outcome, deducting the standard taker fee. The anchor uses the earlier of the market’s close time and expected expiration, because Kalshi frequently extends close times past events, and sampling after the outcome would rig the results.
Read it with a skeptic’s eye: the dataset starts in June 2026 and compounds daily, small samples swing hard, and a profitable backtest is where research starts, not where it ends. Pair it with the Truth Machine for the raw calibration behind these numbers, and the Trade Report to see how your own entries compare.