Prediction market exchange Kalshi will offer parlay contracts on football outcomes, potentially competing directly with traditional sportsbooks in a highly lucrative betting market.
The move comes as the prediction market sector is experiencing heightened competition and investment, with Polymarket securing larger traffic in recent months and a new rival platform securing substantial funding.
Key Takeaways
- Kalshi self-certified a new contract type that enables payout based on multiplying odds of individual components, mirroring standard parlays.
- The initial product appears designed for multi-game parlay bets rather than correlated same-game parlays.
- The push into parlays occurs alongside increased activity in the prediction market exchange industry.
Kalshi submitted the new contract for self-certification with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday.
The filing, titled “Will <outcome> occur in <events>?” outlines a new type of contract that would pay out “the product of the payouts for each <component> as dictated by each corresponding <rule>, rounded down to the nearest cent.” This structure is consistent with how traditional sportsbooks calculate parlay payouts by multiplying the odds of each individual leg.
This method allows Kalshi to leverage existing liquidity on its single-outcome markets without requiring players to provide liquidity for every possible parlay combination. The exchange has offered predesigned parlays in the past for big events like the Oscars, but this new framework would grant users the ability to build their own combinations.
The contract is designed to allow players to include a range of outcomes, including "game outcomes, player statistics, team statistics, championships, awards, season statistics, playoff outcomes, draft outcomes, and milestones," according to the filing.
However, the new product will not feature same-game parlays, where outcomes are often linked. Pricing these bet types requires a different model, as the product of individual odds would not accurately reflect the true probability of correlated events occurring together.
The filing suggests the contract is intended for both NFL and college football.
Robinhood launches NFL contracts; new prediction platform announced
Kalshi’s move coincides with increased activity across the prediction market industry.
Robinhood announced the launch of its own prediction markets for NFL and college football games.
“Adding pro and college football to our prediction markets hub is a no-brainer for us as we aim to make Robinhood a one-stop shop for all your investing and trading needs,” said Robinhood vice president of futures and international JB Mackenzie.
The competitive landscape is also changing significantly, with The Clearing Company, a new prediction market founded by former Polymarket and Kalshi staff, recently announcing it has raised $15 million in a seed funding round led by Union Square Ventures. Haun Ventures, Variant, and Coinbase Ventures have joined the funding.
