Kalshi Review

Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange — a designated contract market (DCM) — which puts it in the most clearly-regulated tier of this entire vertical. You trade Yes/No contracts on economics, politics, weather, culture and, where lawful, sports, with an order book that shows real depth rather than a single sportsbook-style line.

For a US resident this regulatory standing is a genuine asset: you can legally open an account and trade the product directly. The flip side, which we cover honestly below, is that Kalshi does not offer a self-serve affiliate program a content site can plug into today.

How Kalshi works

1. Create and verify your account. Sign up at Kalshi and complete identity verification (KYC) — legal name, date of birth, address and SSN. Kalshi is a regulated exchange, so verification is mandatory.
2. Fund your account. Link a bank account or card and make a deposit. Your buying power is whatever you fund — there is no leverage on standard contracts.
3. Browse markets by category. Markets are grouped (economics, politics, weather, culture, sports where lawful). Each contract is priced between 1¢ and 99¢, reflecting the implied probability.
4. Place a trade on the order book. Buy Yes or No at the market price or set a limit order. Because Kalshi runs an order book, you can see resting bids and offers and trade against them.
5. Hold to settlement or exit early. You can hold a contract until the event resolves (settling at $1 or $0) or sell it back into the order book beforehand to lock in a gain or cut a loss.

The referral reality (read before you expect cash)

Kalshi runs two very different things. The first is a self-serve refer-a-friend referral: you share a per-user code from inside your account, and when a friend signs up, completes KYC, deposits and clears a trading threshold (commonly cited as around 100 trades within 30 days), you receive up to roughly $25 in trading credits — not withdrawable cash — capped at a lifetime total Kalshi sets in-app.

The second is a discretionary affiliate/creator partnership negotiated directly with Kalshi’s partnerships team. That is where real rev-share or per-post deals live, but there is no public self-serve application URL, so it is an outreach relationship rather than a form you fill in. We flag this clearly because it materially changes how a publisher should value Kalshi.

A note on the sports-contract legal picture

Kalshi’s non-sports markets sit on firm regulatory ground, but its sports event contracts have drawn cease-and-desist letters from several state regulators, reportedly including Tennessee, Ohio, Nevada, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. In Florida the sports angle is contested — there is friction with the Seminole Tribe’s exclusive sports-betting rights and proposed legislation (HB 189) that could limit prediction markets.

For readers, the practical takeaway is to lead with the non-sports categories, which are less exposed, and to treat the sports-contract availability as something that can change. We keep our coverage neutral on election-integrity questions in line with Kalshi’s creator policy.

The sign-up offer

The headline "offer" most readers will see is the refer-a-friend credit: up to roughly $25 in trading credits per qualified friend, generated from a per-user code inside your own account. Understand three things before you rely on it — it pays trading credits rather than cash, it is capped at a lifetime total, and the friend must clear a high bar (KYC, deposit and roughly 100 trades within 30 days) before it unlocks. It is a modest perk, not a scalable bonus. Last Verified: June 2026 — confirm current terms.

US & state availability

As a CFTC-regulated federal exchange, Kalshi is broadly available across all 50 states for users 18+ with completed KYC. This is one of its biggest advantages over state-licensed products: there is no DFS-style state-by-state license gate on the core exchange.

The exception is sports contracts, which face active state-level challenges (see above). Florida’s sports angle in particular is contested via HB 189 and the Seminole Tribe question. If you are in Florida or one of the states that has issued a cease-and-desist on sports markets, expect the sports categories specifically to be the most likely to change. Last Verified: June 2026 — confirm current terms.

Excluded / contested: Sports contracts challenged by several state regulators (e.g. TN, OH, NV, MD, NJ, NY, MA, CT); FL sports angle contested via HB 189.