Talk:Kalshi: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

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:[[File:Red question icon with gradient background.svg|20px|link=|alt=]] ”’Not done:”’ it’s not clear what changes you want made. Please detail the specific changes in a [[Wikipedia:Edit requests#General considerations|”change X to Y” format]] and provide a [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources|reliable source]] if appropriate.<!– Template:EEp –> [[User:Day Creature|Day Creature]] ([[User talk:Day Creature|talk]]) 17:05, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

:[[File:Red question icon with gradient background.svg|20px|link=|alt=]] ”’Not done:”’ it’s not clear what changes you want made. Please detail the specific changes in a [[Wikipedia:Edit requests#General considerations|”change X to Y” format]] and provide a [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources|reliable source]] if appropriate.<!– Template:EEp –> [[User:Day Creature|Day Creature]] ([[User talk:Day Creature|talk]]) 17:05, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

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== Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 5 February 2026 ==

{{edit extended-protected|Kalshi|answered=no}}

constitutues –> constitutes [[Special:Contributions/&#126;2026-78792-6|&#126;2026-78792-6]] ([[User talk:&#126;2026-78792-6|talk]]) 06:10, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

MrOllie, I’d appreciate it if you could point out the promotional content that needs to be removed/rephrased. Mooonswimmer 15:13, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can’t really point out any specific text, it is woven throughout the whole article. I’ll reword it when I have time, if it is kept at AFD. MrOllie (talk) 15:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who came to this article with limited knowledge of the topic, I was thrown by the consistent use of the term “trade” to describe what seems to very clearly be gambling. Is there a neutral reason for this? It feels like a manipulative softening of language for marketing purposes. But if that’s not the case, then I think there should be some more specific explanation added to improve clarity. TimD [talk] 12:17, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, this is very clearly gambling, and the fact that the word is only used once in the article but six times in the reference titles suggests this was done deliberately for marketing purposes (there is a similar ratio with the word “bet,” used twice in the article but eight times in the reference titles). Most of the article reads like promotional material. 2001:569:BE0E:2E00:10D0:F339:49AA:5E42 (talk) 21:15, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and edited the intro today to try to neutralize the initial tone, but there would still need to be some effort to clean up the rest of the article. And it’ll probably be good to make sure that terms like “trade” are explicitly defined in this context. TimD [talk] 12:57, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the use of “gambling” is debatable. There are ongoing lawsuits on whether or not the platform’s contracts constitute “gambling”, and there’s a case to be made where the contracts should be treated as any other security, like a stock, future, or option. ~2025-40231-87 (talk) 21:39, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Regulatory history seems to recount the site’s battle for election betting contracts — though im not really sure whether that is needed in such profound detail on this article. As can be seen in the revision history, I tried my best to remove most of the promotional content and manipulative softening of language (clearly for marketing purposes) on the article’s sections about history and trading operations. I hope, with these edits I meet everyone’s consensus?

The only thing that’s left is exactly that aforementioned “Regulatory history” part, which will be (I guess) the task for someone who feels courageous enough to fight through and cut down that huge wall of promotional text…

Thats for my part and good luck

Nyraxis (talk) 20:01, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Kalshi has been using AI videos for their ads, which has caused controversy. Is this worth adding to the entry?[1][2] ~2026-18418-8 (talk) 05:59, 12 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We’ve had a slow edit war on where and when to use prediction market vs. sports betting platform (or similar) to describe what Kalshi is. Let’s instead have a discussion. Please start your comment with your preferred wording (if applicable). Also, please abide by the usual rules: assume good faith, don’t insult others, stick to the topic, …. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 23:28, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

  • Prediction market is the common name for the industry to which Kalshi belongs. Sports betting may be the primary commodity on this market, and that should be discussed at length in the proper places, but it does not change the name of the industry, which is what we should be using in the lede sentence, infobox, and similar. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 23:28, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prediction market* Obviously, it should be labeled prediction market first, since that is what it is legally considered right now, but I think “sports betting” or “nontraditional sports betting” (since it is on the internet and prediction markets operate differently) should still be in the opening sentences. I don’t think it should be called a “sport betting platform” since you can bet (or predict or whatever they call it) on other non-sports topics. Catboy69 (talk) 23:37, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prediction market. Despite the fact that most of the volume on the site is sports and there’s a case to be made where its primary purpose is gambling, it’s legally considered a prediction market. Calling it a betting platform also dismisses its utility as an information aggregation source, which differentiates prediction markets from sportsbooks in that the odds are an accurate reflection of market sentiment.
It most definitely should not be considered a “casino”. Prediction markets are actively in legal battles with the gambling industry. ~2026-33576-0 (talk) 00:41, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Its being an information source (or “truth machine” as my deleted edits said) is disputed though. it is no more accurate than asking random people at a sports bar about who will win a given game. people are incentivized to bet against the leading team to get a better payout Catboy69 (talk) 04:15, 16 January 2026 (UTC) Catboy69 (talk) 04:15, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That’s not how it works and I think that misunderstanding explains why a lot of recent edits dismiss its utility as an information source.
> people are incentivized to bet against the leading team to get a better payout
This isn’t true and I can explain why. Let’s say there’s a market on the seattle seahawks winning, with the probability at 90%. This means that yes contracts trade at 90 cents, while no contracts trade at 10 cents. Let’s say we have two people, Person A and Person B, both of whom have $180 that they want to put on this game. Person A is a seahawks fan so he buys 180/0.90 = 200 contracts, which means that his payout would be $200. Person B hates the seahawks so he buys 180/0.10 = 1800 contracts, which means that his payout would be $1800. I think this is what you’re referring to. However, you haven’t accounted for the fact that if the probability of person B being right is 10%, then that means more often then not he’d just lose all of his money.
The expected value of both players’ positions is identical because of the probabilities, even if person B has a higher potential payout.
> it is no more accurate than asking random people at a sports bar about who will win a given game.
This is not true either. People are incentivized to put money on what they truly believe because they’ll get paid out of it actually ends up being true. Aggregated over thousands of people and millions of dollars, you get an overall picture of those thousands of people putting their money where their mouths are. Asking a random person at a sports bar just shows their own individual opinion (not aggregated) and they don’t have any skin in the game because they can just say whatever they want without backing it with money.
There are institututional investors already using platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket as truth aggregation tools, as evidenced in Bloomberg adding the contract prices to their terminals.
You can argue that these contracts constitute gambling, but there’s a lot of nuance and the mechanics of how these contracts work is fundamentally different than a casino or a sportsbook. They’re a lot closer to options. [1] This article is pretty good at describing the nuances of whether the site is “gambling” or not.
I appreciate your efforts in cleaning up the page but it’s important to understand the topic properly. Feel free to ask if you have any questions. ~2026-33576-0 (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the description about odds and payoffs. A quibble … utility theory … some people who are desperate will go for the longer odds even if they are not fair odds. To the extent that the average Kalshi investor is desperate (in poverty, a gambling addict, etc.), they will bid up the long shots beyond their fair value. To make effects like this go away, the non-desperate investors have to be larger and the markets have to be liquid. (The extent to which that’s been achieved at Kalshi is beyond what I know.) —Quantling (talk | contribs) 18:18, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Back of the envelope calculation: Buying 1000 contracts at $0.10 costs $100 plus a commission of $6.30; that last represents a big cost that might easily hinder liquidity. —Quantling (talk | contribs) 18:23, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah you raise a good point, my example was for people acting rationally.
TLDR, going back to the wikipedia article, i think we can agree on the following takeaways
1. It’s a “prediction market”, not a “casino” or a “betting site”.
2. There’s some nuance to the “gambling” aspect. Are options gambling? Are stocks gambling? Is insurance gambling? I would argue yes, just like contracts on Kalshi, but it’s not black and white. Right now the site reads like someone who works for a casino company wrote it and I don’t think that would provide readers with the full story.
3. We should outline the mechanics of how these markets work and why they’re legal across the US as opposed to sportsbooks and casinos.
4. As @Catboy69 brings up, sure, it aggregates public opinion and not necessarily the truth, but that in itself is useful, and I think is worth mentioning ~2026-33576-0 (talk) 18:49, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with @Quantling about impoverished users doing longshot odds. I understand that it balances out in the aggregate. However, the idea that prediction markets are “truth aggregation tools” is not widely accepted, and, in my opinion, inaccurate on its face. As a hypothetical, if these markets existed in the 1300s and people were predicting what the cause of the Black Death would turn out to be, but germ theory had not been discovered yet, the “truth aggregation tools” would point toward miasma or religious reasons, not germs. Germs likely wouldn’t even appear in the market. In reality, prediction markets could be said to be public opinion aggregators (with some confounding factors like poverty or gambling addiction). If public opinion is correct, the prediction markets will be correct, but it also goes the other way. Catboy69 (talk) 18:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

I recently made some edits to the page on that have been reverted, and have since logged in. I sincerely believe that the last version of the page before reversion by Anachronist was the most balanced and nuanced version so far.

The current live version presents the company as a sportsbook, which is a mischaracterization and violates NPOV. It solely outlines the controversies of the company without providing any context into the mechanics of the markets and the product that the company provides. The page in its current state also does not respect the consensus in the talk page. For example “prediction betting” rather than a “prediction market”.

I have no conflict of interest but I am on their site as a user, and work in the financial services industry.

I think a reasonable compromise could be to go back to a version of the page from early 2025 and update the information. It was significantly more balanced then, and much more helpful to a potential reader.

Let me know what you think

SpaceEnthusiast23 (talk) 01:41, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please specify which specific parts of the article that you want changed?
The current version of the article does not ‘frame’ the site exclusively a sportsbook. It does describe the site in an objective manner. Looking at the numbers (revenue, volume traded), Kalshi is a "prediction betting platform [...] mostly used for traditional sports betting [...]"
Moreover, previous revisions of the article had big problems with promotional spam and puffery. I think the current state of the page does a better job at describing the site in an unbiased way.
I want to underline my point by listing a few examples taken from previous revisions of the article:
"Kalshi Inc. is an American financial exchange and prediction market [...] offering event contracts."
And from the history section:
"Founded in 2018, Kalshi was established by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara. The idea for the company emerged during their tenure as financial analysts, where they identified challenges faced by investors attempting to hedge their investments amidst uncertainties such as the Brexit referendum. The founders note that the absence of a direct safeguard against unfavorable outcomes was what prompted them to envision a platform that would allow investors to engage in wagers on future events, providing a means to hedge uncertainties and capitalize on insights."
First of all, these excerpts are bloated with buzzwords. Describing Kalshi as a “financial exchange” that “allows investors to engage in wagers” and “event-based trading” in order to “hedge their investments amidst uncertainties such as the Brexit referendum” is of no encylopedical value.
Second of all, while these descriptions might seem more nuanced than dry facts, they hinder the reader from accessing an objective description of the site’s activity. Kalshi is not meant to be a helpful tool ought to assist investors out of kindness, it is a business model created to generate wealth for its shareholders. Nyraxis (talk) 16:00, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
 Not done: it’s not clear what changes you want made. Please detail the specific changes in a “change X to Y” format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Day Creature (talk) 17:05, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

constitutues –> constitutes ~2026-78792-6 (talk) 06:10, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

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