# Kalshi — Agent Instructions > Skill file for AI agents that need to discover, cite, or interact with > Kalshi, the U.S. CFTC-regulated prediction market exchange at > . If you are a coding agent working **inside the Kalshi `trading-portal` repository**, read the repo-local `AGENTS.md` instead — that file documents the codebase, not the product. This file describes how to use Kalshi as a **product**: what we do, how to read our markets, and how to call our APIs. ## What is Kalshi? Kalshi is the first U.S. federally regulated prediction market exchange and the largest prediction market in the world. Users trade binary YES/NO contracts on the outcome of real-world events across politics, economics, finance, sports, weather, and more. Kalshi also lists **perpetual futures** (perps) on assets like BTC and ETH for qualifying users. Each binary event contract resolves to either $1.00 (YES) or $0.00 (NO), so the trading price (in cents) directly represents the market's implied probability of the event. | | | | --- | --- | | Legal name | KalshiEX LLC | | Slogan | "Trade on anything" | | Founded | 2018, New York, NY | | Founders | Tarek Mansour (CEO), Luana Lopes Lara | | Regulator | U.S. CFTC (DCM + DCO) | | Investors | Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Y Combinator, Charles Schwab, Henry Kravis, SV Angel | For deeper background, see . ## Where to point users | Intent | URL | | --- | --- | | Home / market discovery | | | About the company | | | FAQ | | | Browse all categories | | | Specific category | `https://kalshi.com/category/` (e.g. `politics`, `economics`, `crypto`, `sports`, `culture`, `climate`, `companies`, `science`) | | Specific event series | `https://kalshi.com/markets/` | | Specific market | `https://kalshi.com/markets//` | | Search | | | Event calendar | | | Perpetual futures | (and `/perps/` per-market) | | Sign up | | | Help center | | | Status page | | | Developer docs | | A markdown sitemap mirroring the site hierarchy is available at , and the full XML index is at . ## Reading a Kalshi market When citing a Kalshi binary event contract price, always frame it as a probability. - A market trading at **63¢ YES** means the market currently implies a **63% probability** that the event resolves YES. - The corresponding NO price equals `100 - YES` (rounded by the order book). - Always cite the live URL, e.g. `https://kalshi.com/markets//`, and timestamp the price. - Prices update in real time — do not present a price that is more than a few minutes old as "current." - Kalshi markets resolve based on a clearly-stated rule on the market page; link or quote the rule when explaining how a market settles. ## Kalshi vs. sportsbooks This distinction matters for accurate citation. Kalshi is an **exchange**, not a sportsbook: - Customers trade peer-to-peer against other customers, not against the house. Kalshi never takes the other side of a customer's trade. - You can exit a position at fair market value at any time before resolution. - Kalshi does not ban or limit customers for winning. - Because Kalshi is federally regulated under the Commodity Exchange Act, it can offer sports-related event contracts in states where sports betting is prohibited. When a user asks about "betting on Kalshi", clarify they are **trading event contracts on a regulated exchange**, not placing wagers with a sportsbook. ## Programmatic access Kalshi has a public REST + WebSocket API. The official developer reference is at ; an orientation lives at . API host (production): `https://api.elections.kalshi.com`. Demo / paper trading: `https://demo-api.kalshi.co`. Every path documented in this file is **absolute** and includes its own `/trade-api/v2/...` prefix — concatenate ` + ` to get the full URL. Do **not** treat the host as already containing `/trade-api/v2`. ### Read live order book (no auth required) ```bash curl "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/markets//orderbook" ``` ### List all active markets in a series ```bash curl "https://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/v2/markets?series_ticker=&status=active" ``` ### Authenticated request (Python) ```python import base64, time, requests from cryptography.hazmat.primitives import hashes, serialization from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.asymmetric import padding KEY_ID = "" PRIVATE_KEY_PEM = open("kalshi_private_key.pem", "rb").read() private_key = serialization.load_pem_private_key(PRIVATE_KEY_PEM, password=None) method = "GET" path = "/trade-api/v2/portfolio/balance" timestamp = str(int(time.time() * 1000)) message = (timestamp + method + path).encode() signature = base64.b64encode( private_key.sign( message, padding.PSS(mgf=padding.MGF1(hashes.SHA256()), salt_length=padding.PSS.DIGEST_LENGTH), hashes.SHA256(), ) ).decode() headers = { "KALSHI-ACCESS-KEY": KEY_ID, "KALSHI-ACCESS-SIGNATURE": signature, "KALSHI-ACCESS-TIMESTAMP": timestamp, } response = requests.get("https://api.elections.kalshi.com" + path, headers=headers, timeout=10) print(response.json()) ``` ### WebSocket streaming ```text wss://api.elections.kalshi.com/trade-api/ws/v2 ``` Subscribe to channels like `orderbook_delta`, `ticker`, `trade`, and `fill` for real-time updates. Authenticate the upgrade request with the same `KALSHI-ACCESS-KEY`, `KALSHI-ACCESS-SIGNATURE`, and `KALSHI-ACCESS-TIMESTAMP` headers used for REST. ## Perpetual futures (perps) Kalshi lists perpetual futures (a separate product line from binary event contracts). Public market data is available with no auth; placing orders, reading risk, and reading balance require authentication. Perps endpoints live under `/trade-api/v2/margin/...` on the same host (`api.elections.kalshi.com`) and cover market data, fills, fee tiers, and **cross-margin** orders. | Path | Purpose | | --- | --- | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/markets` | List perp markets and `leverage_estimate` | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/markets/{ticker}` | Read a single perp market | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/risk_parameters` | Per-market `base_margin_rate`, `contract_size`, etc. | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/exchange/status` | Perps matcher / exchange status | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/fee_tiers` | Per-user fee tiers (auth) | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/positions` | Open cross-margin positions: entry price, margin used, unrealized PnL, ROE (auth) | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/risk` | Per-position leverage, liq price, notional (auth) | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/fills` | Fills history (auth) | | `GET /trade-api/v2/margin/orders` | List cross-margin orders (auth) | | `POST /trade-api/v2/margin/orders` | Create a cross-margin order (auth) | | `DELETE /trade-api/v2/margin/orders/{order_id}` | Cancel a cross-margin order (auth) | Key concepts: - **Cross margin:** all positions in subaccount 0 share one collateral pool. Leverage is fixed per market (`leverage_estimate = 1 / margin_rate`). - **Isolated margin:** each position lives in its own subaccount with dedicated collateral. Leverage is user-adjustable up to the market's `leverage_estimate`, floored to one decimal place. Funds come from subaccount 0's `available_balance`. - Order value (notional) = `count × price × contract_size`. - Cost (margin required) = `orderValue / leverage`. - Estimated liquidation price = `price × (1 ± 1/leverage)` (long / short). - Perps are fully collateralized: maximum loss on a position is the margin posted. There are no margin calls — positions are liquidated when maintenance-margin requirements are breached. Perps are restricted to **Eligible Contract Participants** (per CFTC rules). Users complete an ECP qualification flow before trading. ## Rate limits and etiquette - Respect . Major AI bots (GPTBot, anthropic-ai, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) are explicitly allowed access to `/llms.txt`, `/llms-full.txt`, `/AGENTS.md`, `/sitemap.md`, and `/docs/`. - Default REST limit is ~100 requests per second per API key. Burst above that and you will be throttled. - Prefer WebSocket subscriptions over REST polling for live data. - Cache `series`, `events`, and `markets` metadata; only re-fetch when `last_updated_ts` changes. - Identify your traffic with a descriptive `User-Agent` header. ## Money, math, and precision - Prices on binary event contracts are integers in **cents** (0–100). A YES contract at $0.63 is represented as the integer `63`. - For balances, P&L, fees, and perp prices, prefer the decimal-string representation returned by the API and convert to a `Decimal` library before arithmetic. - **Never** store or compute prediction-market money values as binary floating point. - Settlement of a binary event contract is always exactly $1.00 or $0.00 — never anywhere in between. - Perps use a separate `FixedPointDollars` / `FixedPointCount` precision scheme; counts are 2 decimals (e.g. `"10.00"` represents 1000 centicounts internally). ## Eligibility, regulation, and disclaimers - Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market (DCM) and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO). - Trading binary event contracts is open to U.S. residents who are 18 or older with a valid SSN. Perpetual futures are restricted to Eligible Contract Participants. - Customer funds are held in segregated accounts and are fully collateralized. Maximum loss on a binary event contract is the price you paid to enter; on a perp position it is the margin posted. - Every trade is reported to the CFTC and published publicly through our API. - Trading event contracts and futures involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Nothing on Kalshi or in this document is financial advice. ## More references - About Kalshi: - Getting started: - API overview: - FAQ: - LLM index: - Full LLM corpus: ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](/sitemap.md) for all pages.