Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts: Which Prediction Market Platform Should You Use in 2026?

Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts sounds like a real debate given the brands involved, but one platform clearly outclasses the other. Kalshi is the better prediction market by a mile.

For starters, Kalshi gives you far more markets to trade, cheaper pricing on almost every contract, trading tools like limit orders and a public API, and the freedom to sell out of any position before it settles. 

FanDuel Predicts is easier to pick up and offers more promotions, which makes it a comfortable starting point for casual traders and an obvious fit for people already using FanDuel. 

Both platforms are CFTC-regulated with a pristine track record, so picking between them never comes down to whether your private info is protected. It always is.

The rest of this Kalshi vs FanDuel Predicts prediction market comparison breaks down each area so you can match the right platform to how you trade.

Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts Comparison: Quick Comparison Table

Before the full breakdown, the table below compares the two top prediction market apps on key features. 

Regulatory Status and State-Level Restrictions

While both Kalshi and FanDuel Predicts operate under the federal oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), their underlying exchange models differ significantly. These structural differences directly impact market availability, resulting in a complex patchwork of state-level restrictions for sports-based event contracts on both platforms.

Learn where prediction markets are legal with our detailed state-by-state guide.

Kalshi Regulations and Availability

• Kalshi operates its own federally regulated exchange. KalshiEX LLC is a CFTC-designated contract market (DCM), approved as the first event exchange back in 2020. That means Kalshi handles both sides itself, offering the contracts and running the marketplace where you trade them.

• Kalshi is available in all 50 states, and its non-sports markets are open nationwide.

• Kalshi's sports contracts are restricted in several states, including Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, and Ohio, because of active legal disputes.

FanDuel Predicts Regulations and Availability

• FanDuel Predicts is a joint venture between FanDuel Group and CME Group. The contracts come from CME Group's CFTC-regulated derivatives exchanges, and your account is opened with FanDuel Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant and NFA member that handles the brokerage side.

• FanDuel Predicts is available in all 50 states + Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

• FanDuel's sports contracts are only offered in states where the company doesn’t already provide its other products, including California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, and Nevada. In states like New York and New Jersey, you get the non-sports contracts, but sports trading is restricted. 

Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts Welcome Bonuses Compared

Both Kalshi and FanDuel Predicts offer some of the best prediction market bonuses to give new traders extra value right out of the gate.

Kalshi offers a $25 welcome bonus after trading $25. To claim it, use our Kalshi promo code WSN, fund your account, place $25 in trades, and the $25 bonus funds will appear in your balance.

FanDuel Predicts offers up to a $100 bonus to new customers. You get $20 after your first deposit and trade, then $20 a day for the next four days if you trade daily. No promo code is needed.

Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts Market Variety

Here’s how the Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts comparison shakes out when it comes to market variety.

Kalshi Market Variety

Kalshi covers 20+ sports, including niche ones like darts, rugby, lacrosse, table tennis, chess, esports, sumo, track and field, and SailGP. 

There are also offbeat sports markets like City Titles, which lets you trade on how many major championships all of a city's or state’s pro teams will win before a certain date. For instance, you can take a position on Texas at 3-plus titles by July 2030 if you expect the Astros, Mavericks, or Cowboys to deliver a championship or two along the way.

Within a single sport, Kalshi opens up a wide range of competitions. Take basketball: you can trade the NBA, the EuroLeague, and domestic leagues in Germany, Turkey, Mexico, and Spain. Kalshi even prices less popular events like NCAA Volleyball.

Kalshi also offers 10 real-world categories, including Politics, Elections, Economics, Crypto, Climate, Commodities, Mentions, Finance, and Tech & Science. There are dozens of markets packed into each category, not just one big yes-or-no question.

Crypto is a good example. Instead of just year-end price targets, Kalshi has contracts that settle every 15 minutes, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annually across BTC, ETH, SOL, and XRP. You can trade where a coin lands in the next quarter hour or a year from now. 

Kalshi also has Mentions markets, which track whether a specific word gets said during a live event. No other platform builds these on its own, so you'll only see them at Kalshi and on sites that source their markets from it, like Plus500 and Robinhood.

Types of Sports Markets at Kalshi

Kalshi offers several types of sports markets to trade, including single-game contracts, player props, season-long futures, Combos, and live in-game action, each broken down below.

Futures

Kalshi's futures go way beyond just picking who lifts the trophy. In baseball alone, you can trade the Pro Baseball Champion market, division winners, playoff qualifiers, award finalists, league leaders, next-team moves, managers, and even player debuts. The champion market alone has 14 different contracts and more than $80 million in volume, so there's plenty of action long before October.

Tennis offers the same range, from tournament winners to ATP and WTA rankings, and even when a player calls it a career. You'll see markets like "Will Novak Djokovic retire before 2027?" sitting right next to the week-to-week tournament action.

Player Props

Player props let you trade on what a single player will do instead of the final team result. You'll see questions like "Will Jonathan Taylor score a touchdown?" or "Will Rashee Rice record 90+ receiving yards?", each one with a Yes and a No side and live prices that move as the game plays out.

Many props also come with alternate lines, so you're not stuck with one number. You can pick a higher or lower target at a different price.

Kalshi Combos & Live Trading

Combos let you bundle several outcomes into a single trade, similar to combining a few picks into one position. Just open the Combo builder and add the outcomes you want, whether that's pairing two team results or stacking a handful of player props into one position. Every leg has to hit for the trade to pay out. 

Kalshi isn't only for pre-game predictions; you can also trade live as games and events play out, with prices updating on every score, big play, or injury, much like financial markets reacting to breaking news.

• More info can be found in our full Kalshi review.

FanDuel Predicts Market Variety

FanDuel Predicts keeps its sports lineup mainstream, covering the major US leagues, golf, soccer, tennis, and motorsports.

Outside sports, the Predicts app offers just two non-sports categories, Commodities and Financials, with markets like the monthly unemployment rate and E-mini S&P 500 futures levels. If you want politics, climate, or granular crypto, you won't find any of it here.

Types of Sports Markets at FanDuel Predicts

FanDuel's market types line up closely with Kalshi's, covering straight single-game markets, player props, Combos, and live in-game trading. What you won't find is futures, which rules out season-long plays like MVP or the Super Bowl winner.

Props

FanDuel offers props for all major sports. 

In football, you get props for total passing yards, passing touchdowns, rushing yards, receiving yards, receptions, longest reception, rushing attempts, plus scorer markets like to score the first touchdown or to score 2-plus touchdowns. 

Baseball is just as loaded, with batting props like hitting a home run, total bases, hits, and RBIs, plus pitching props and inning-by-inning markets such as the first 3 or first 5 innings winner, total, and spread.

Alternate lines are available too, so you can move the number up or down on totals and spreads to find a price that fits how you want to trade.

Combos & Live Trading

Combos let you bundle up to eight football predictions into one trade for a bigger potential payout. Build one from an eligible event, but remember, every selection must hit for the Combo to pay, which raises both the risk and the reward.

FanDuel Predicts offers live trading, so you can trade as games play out with prices updating in real time.

• Visit our detailed FanDuel Predicts review to get more info.

Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts: Comparison of Payment Methods

Kalshi supports more payment methods and moves money more quickly. FanDuel Predicts charges no withdrawal fees, but it offers fewer options.

Kalshi Payment Methods

Kalshi deposit methods include ACH bank transfers, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, debit and credit cards, wire transfer, and crypto. ACH deposits are free but take 1 to 3 business days, while Cash App and your first Venmo deposit are both free and instant. Card and PayPal deposits also land instantly, though they come with a 2% fee.

Most methods start at a $10 minimum, while wire transfers start at $1,000. Daily deposit limits are generous, from $10,000 on Venmo and $20,000 on cards and Cash App, up to $40,000 on ACH, $60,000 on PayPal, and $500,000 on crypto. 

Payouts are quick and mostly free. ACH withdrawals take 3 to 4 business days at no cost, while PayPal and Venmo are free and clear within 30 minutes. Debit withdrawals cost $2 and land just as fast.

A few deposit methods come with short security holds before you can withdraw, from 3 days on a debit card to up to 30 days on a new bank transfer, which is standard for a regulated exchange.

FanDuel Predicts Payment Methods

FanDuel Predicts gives you fewer options: debit card, Apple Pay, and online banking, with a $10 minimum on both deposits and withdrawals. It doesn’t charge withdrawal fees.

Withdrawal speed depends on how you cash out. Debit card and Apple Pay withdrawals arrive within 24 hours once FanDuel reviews the request, while online banking takes up to five business days. Your first withdrawal can take a bit longer, since FanDuel allows up to 48 hours for that initial review.

Your FanDuel Predicts money is separate from your other FanDuel accounts, so you fund Predicts on its own. Payouts also need 1 to 2 business days to clear after a position settles before you can withdraw them.

Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts Trading Fees and Contract Pricing

The two platforms charge fees in completely different ways. Kalshi ties its fee to the contract's price, so what you pay rises and falls with the market, while  FanDuel Predicts charges a flat 2% of your potential payout, which stays the same every time. 

Kalshi Trading Fees

Kalshi uses a price-weighted formula, so the fee depends on a contract's price. The exact formulas, per contract, are:

• Taker fee = 0.07 × P × (1 − P)

• Maker fee = 0.0175 × P × (1 − P)

P is the contract price in dollars, so a 50-cent contract uses P = 0.50.

In plain terms, the fee is the highest on contracts near 50 cents and gets smaller toward the extremes. A 50-cent one costs about $0.0175 per contract to take and $0.004375 to make, while a contract at 10 or 90 cents drops to around $0.0063 to take.

Kalshi rounds the total order fee up to the nearest cent. Posting a limit order as a maker brings the cost down even more.

FanDuel Predicts Trading Fees

FanDuel Predicts charges a flat 2% of your potential payout, once when you enter and again if you exit early. A contract always settles at $1, so that comes out to about 2 cents per contract, whatever the price. Put simply, a $100 potential payout costs you $2 in fees. 

Here's how it plays out. Say you buy a longshot at 10 cents. At FanDuel, the 2-cent fee is 20% of the 10 cents you put in, while the same contract at Kalshi costs about 0.6 cents, or roughly 6% of your stake.

The flat fee also piles up on bigger positions, since it never drops the way Kalshi's does and every contract is the same 2 cents. The two only come close near the 50-cent mark, where Kalshi's fee is at its highest.

The Verdict: Which Kalshi vs. FanDuel Predicts Prediction Market Fits Your Strategy?

Choosing between Kalshi and FanDuel Predicts ultimately comes down to whether you prioritize deep market variety and advanced trading tools or an intuitive, newcomer-friendly interface. Here is how both platforms stack up across the key categories that matter most to your trading strategy:

• The definitive winner for market variety: Kalshi. It covers 20+ sports and 10+ real-world categories such as Politics, Crypto, Climate, and Mentions. FanDuel sticks to major sports and only 4 non-sports categories.

• The definitive winner for advanced tools: Kalshi. You get limit orders, a live order book, a public API, and perpetual futures, which is everything an active or automated trader needs. FanDuel offers market orders only, with no order book, limit orders, or API.

• The definitive winner for low fees: Kalshi. Its price-weighted fees fall below FanDuel's flat 2% on most contracts, and the difference is largest on longshots, favorites, and large positions.

• The definitive winner for simplicity and a clean interface: FanDuel Predicts. The app is easier for a newcomer to learn, and flat pricing means you always know the cost up front.

• The definitive winner for promotions: FanDuel Predicts. It offers a bigger welcome bonus and some promotions you won't find at Kalshi, like Every Touchdown Pays. 

• The definitive winner for banking: Kalshi. It supports far more funding methods, from ACH and cards to PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and crypto, with free payouts through PayPal and Venmo in about 30 minutes. FanDuel offers just three methods, though every withdrawal is free.