Kalshi has filed a notice with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) explaining that it is “self-certifying” contracts that would act similarly to proposition bets.
CEO Tarek Mansour wrote on Monday, Feb. 10 that the it would begin offering “will <achievement> be obtained by <participant>?” contracts relating to American sports on Feb. 11.
Ostensibly, the wording of the contracts would allow Kalshi users to wager money on the likelihood of teams and/or athletes achieving certain performance metrics in games, such as points scored.
At the time of writing on Feb. 12, the prediction market’s website appeared to only be offering sports futures contracts such as who will win various pro and college sports championships, which it launched last month.
If it does indeed begin to offer prop-like contracts, it would mark a huge expansion in Kalshi’s slate.
Kalshi also promised single-game contracts
The new filing came three days after Mansour wrote to the CFTC that it was self-certifying sports event contracts based on single-game outcomes.
The “will <team> win <event>?” contracts were slated to go live on Saturday, Feb. 8.
Kalshi did offer contracts on who would win the Super Bowl LIX, which essentially functioned as a single-event contract once the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles had punched their respective tickets to the game. The platform took nearly $27 million in total volume for trading on Sunday’s game.
Kalshi currently allows trading on all markets in 50 states, although the CFTC is reviewing the legality of its sports contracts. The commission has requested that other providers like Crypto.com and Robinhood remove their sports-related markets.
Robinhood also made headlines when it walked back listing Kalshi’s Super Bowl market via its app just 24 hours after it had announced a partnership with the market provider after the CFTC expressed concerns.
Players and staff would be mostly prohibited
For both single-event and prop contracts, Kalshi includes prohibitions on current and former players and coaches in a certain sport from buying contracts, as well as staff of the league, association or governing body.
These prohibitions apply to “the appropriate values,” adds Kalshi, meaning that ex-NFL players are not necessarily prohibited from trading on NBA contracts.
For college sports only, the provision applies to players and staff of specific teams rather than the league or association as a whole, so other players or staff of an NCAA basketball team feasibly trade on a college basketball game as long as their team isn’t included.
Paid employees of leagues, as well as owners of teams and the league and household members of all above individuals would also be banned from trading on props.
