Kalshi is the first CFTC regulated exchange dedicated to trading on the outcome of future events. From inflation, to fed rates, to unemployment, to will the government shut down, Kalshi allows people to trade on a broad range of topics. We’ve developed a new asset class, event contracts, where you can buy Yes or No positions with respect to whether an event will happen or not. Kalshi’s vision is to allow people to capitalize on their opinions, trade in the domain of every day, and hedge risks that relate to them.
About Kalshi
Event Contracts
Kalshi’s Event Contracts give people the ability to trade based on their opinions about a specific yes-or-no question. For example, if you have student debt and are worried about relief not passing, you can purchase a contract and get a payout even if it doesn’t pass. If you’re worried about the economic fallout of the government shutting down, you can place a trade to hedge against it. If you’ve developed a model on inflation, you can profit from that….and maybe even offset your rising costs.
Event Contracts have an interesting side effect - the price that a given event contract trades at is actually the market’s assessment of the probability that the event will happen. Our inflation and federal rate forecasts have been more accurate than economists, pundits, and traditional news outlets over the past year.
We offer Event Contracts on a wide range of topics, including economics, culture, weather, scientific advancements, and traditional financial markets such as commodities, forex,S&P, and NASDAQ indices.
Company History
Founding and Inspiration (2018)
Joining Y Combinator and Early Development (2019)
A Milestone in Regulation (2020)
Growth and Investment (2021-2023)
2024
Kalshi was founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, who met while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During their early careers at financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and Bridgewater, Tarek and Luana observed that many financial decisions were driven by predictions about future events. However, they noticed a gap in the market: there was no straightforward way for people to trade directly on event outcomes.
Existing financial products typically relied on complex structures to approximate event exposure, which were often cumbersome and costly. Recognizing this inefficiency, Tarek and Luana were inspired to create a simpler, more direct exchange where people could trade on the outcome of specific events.
Joining Y Combinator and Early Development (2019)
In 2019, Kalshi was accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter batch, where the team further developed the platform. Later that year, they launched a Beta version of Kalshi, inviting early users to participate and provide feedback. This phase was crucial in refining the platform in preparation for formal regulatory approval.
A Milestone in Regulation (2020)
Achieving regulatory approval was a core goal for Kalshi from the outset. In 2020, Kalshi made history by becoming the first fully regulated financial exchange in the U.S. specifically for event contracts, officially designated as a Designated Contract Market (DCM) by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). This approval placed Kalshi alongside established exchanges like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), cementing its position as a pioneer in event trading and offering a secure, compliant platform for both retail and institutional participants.
Growth and Investment (2021-2023)
Kalshi’s innovative approach attracted significant investment from leading entities. The company secured funding from prominent backers, including Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, and notable figures such as Charles “Chuck” Schwab and Henry Kravis. This financial support enabled Kalshi to expand its offerings and enhance its platform to serve a growing community of traders. During this period, Kalshi gained extensive media coverage from major outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and The Boston Globe.
2024
In 2024, Kalshi achieved a historic milestone by becoming the first fully regulated platform in over a century to offer legal election betting in the United States. This development followed a federal appeals court ruling that upheld Kalshi's right to list contracts on political outcomes, including congressional control and presidential elections. The court determined that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had not provided sufficient evidence that such contracts would harm public interest or the agency. Consequently, Kalshi's election markets operate in strict compliance with U.S. laws and regulatory standards, offering a legal avenue for Americans to trade on election outcomes.
The approval process involved extensive regulatory review and legal deliberations. Kalshi initially sought permission from the CFTC to offer election-based event contracts. The CFTC expressed concerns about potential manipulation and impacts on election integrity, leading to a denial of Kalshi's proposal. In response, Kalshi filed a lawsuit challenging the CFTC's decision. The federal court ruled in favor of Kalshi, stating that the CFTC had exceeded its statutory authority and had not provided sufficient evidence to justify the ban. Following the court's decision, Kalshi launched its election markets, allowing users to trade on various political outcomes, including the presidential race and control of Congress.
With its commitment to regulatory compliance and innovation, Kalshi is the leading platform for event-based trading. Kalshi envisions a future where individuals can hedge against everyday risks and a marketplace that provides insights into public expectations on key societal and economic issues.
Kalshi’s Values
- Climb the Steeper Mountain
"I want to put a ding in the universe" - Steve Jobs
Dream big. Be overly optimistic. Never compromise. We picked a very steep mountain and that’s the one we’re climbing.
We think big for every course of action we’re taking. If there’s not a slight discomfort in your gut, maybe a little bit of stress, then we feel we’re not being bold enough. We’re daring; sometimes even “ridiculously” daring. If it’s obvious how we’ll climb the mountain, then it’s not steep enough and it’s probably not worth climbing.
We are not building an exchange, we are building the next inflection point for financial markets and are settling for nothing short of that.
"A world where the first thing you think about when you have an opinion about the future is to capitalize on it. A world where all risks are hedged. A world where we have taken control of the future, and have made it less uncertain."
The vision of the company is the ultimate realization of climbing the steeper mountain. We didn't go for a small scale, money squeezing betting site. We're building a fully regulated financial exchange... a new asset-class.
- Steep Mountains are Steep
"Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare." - Angela Duckworth
Resilience is the number one factor behind Kalshi being where it is today. We never gave up, we should never give up. We take ridiculously hard and "impossible" problems and push and push and push... till we knock them out. Companies are built through hardship; it's precisely how we act in times of hardship that will define how far we're going.
The most difficult thing about steep climbs is not that they're steep, it's how steep they "look" and how long they take to climb. They really do seem impossible. People have dismissed and will keep on dismissing our ability to climb them. The thing is: they don't know the climber. They don't know how far we'll go, how we fight at all costs, the sacrifices we've made and we'll keep on making... They don't know we won't give up. We're willing to work through difficulty, towards something that might take a while to pan out.
We're talking months and months of revising and iterating on one set of contracts. It truly felt like an endless desert of pain, one that was never ending. The contracts team kept on fighting and pushing. They reviewed the 27 launch contracts more than 25 times each. They kept on incorporating new information, perfecting, polishing... no signs that we were winning this battle. But they kept going. Never gave up.
... until the beautifully crafted arguments of the contracts team we heard and the "greenlight" email finally came through.
It was Kalshi's Independence Day.
- Plan Deliberately, Climb Ferociously
The best mountain climbers identify their "line": they are deliberate about which direction they pick and what tradeoffs it brings. They plan meticulously, prepare their tools, consider the details and tradeoffs… but then they climb.
We cannot analyze our way to the top. Plan only when it is necessary, then climb with urgency. Once we have a sense of direction, we execute. We run, make mistakes, measure, adjust, and iterate. We cannot plan for everything and the only way to progress is by acting. Kalshi's life depends on it.
For months, we had been moving in circles. We were running but we were not progressing. It felt hopeless. Everyone was tired. The bugs were crawling from everywhere: backend, frontend, there were even bugs without code... and they were proliferating. The end was near.
Then the master planner created the "testing" masterplan. The one that will finally get us to beat the never-ending stream of bugs. It was beautiful. Meticulously crafted. There was love put into that plan. The Clubhouse dashboard was a piece of art.
And then, there was nothing beautiful about what followed... the engineering team executed. Like wild beasts, they tore into the unit tests and obliterated the bugs, violently, with no mercy. They had no other option. The clock was ticking. There was no time for beauty, for analysis. They had to get the job done and they had to get it done fiercly. Out of a battlefield bloodied by the decapitated, broken version of the exchange, emerged the Kalshian engineers, glorious as ever, shining as the Partovian crowds Tweeted.
- No Free Lunch
"There's no such thing as a free lunch" - Milton Friedman
...There's no such thing as free lunch indicates an acknowledgement that in reality a person or a society cannot get "something for nothing". Even if something appears to be free, there is always a cost to the person or to society as a whole, although that may be a hidden cost or an externality.
The most important things usually come at a cost. If something seems too easy or cheap, be doubtful. Think through all the dimensions to find where the cost is. We need to spend a tremendous amount of effort to get to great outcomes.
We need to put in extreme effort, discipline, thought, and intellect to get to the outlier and extreme result we hope to achieve. Succeeding where many have failed costs a lot: let's work hard to pay for lunch.
"Where are we getting screwed here? It's too good to be true". You could hear the Kalshians mumble across the room. "It's cheap, it's fast, it checks all the boxes... something must be off". They were told to "rest assured, [former messaging provider] is indeed a superior messaging provider".
It wasn't till centuries later (6 months in Gregorian time) that they discovered that [former messaging provider] had sever limitations for our use case. The Kalshians knew: the price for the "free lunch" had finally come.
- It's Yours, Make it Work
"The price of greatness is responsibility." - Winston Churchill
It's yours. Its struggles are your day-to-day. Its responsibilities should rest on your shoulders. Its successes are yours to celebrate. Don't assume that things are fine and taken care of. Each one of us is responsible and essential to the functioning and success of the company. P(A) doesn't exist, it's P(A|me).
Love your craft. Embrace its ownership and take full responsibility over its outcomes. When you're putting something out there, you better be proud of it. Be proactive at flagging and fixing issues. Try to outdo yourself, iterate and take your craft to the next level. Make mistakes and own them. Always give it your 110%, never your 100%. The difference in outcome is not 10%, it's 10x. Take pride in your craft.
Own what you're working on, grow it, and grow with it.
The battle was vivid. The enemy progressing. A "death by a thousand paper cuts" was imminent. Our regulatory and contracts battalions were outnumbered. Hope had faltered.
When all hope was lost, whispers started in Kalshian circles: "CRORHT", "CRORHT is here", "CRORHT has no legal experience", "CRORHT is annoying", "CRORHT - we are now saved!". The CRORHT had emerged: a group of engineering exiles. Vigilantes, with no authority or rights over the regulatory jurisdiction. They were way over the heads, executed outside of their realm of powers. "Are they lawyers? Do they know anything about regulation?" The answer was no. But they had to take the mantle in these dire times. They gave it their all: crafted beautiful rules that restored order and helped save the kingdom.
Anti-heroes that had to save Kalshi, when no one else could.
- Tough Love
"But let's get back to the brothers [sisters/siblings] because they're- they have a strong bond!" - Rick and Morty, Inter-dimensional Cable
We truly care and only the people that truly care give tough love. Some people like to criticize, be negative, dismiss. Others don't say anything or maybe give fake words of encouragement. But when it matters, it's the ones that truly care that will give you feedback honestly and brutally, that will have uncomfortable conversations, and then help you figure it out. They give you feedback that you may not want to hear, that may be hurtful, but then they help you solve it, transition out of it. And that comes only from people that care.
We push each other. We work towards bringing out the best version out of each one of us. Any one of our's success is a success for all of us. Lets be there for each other.
The journey ahead is tough: care enough to have the tough conversations and have each other's backs.
"not good enough" - T "can do better" - L "why the f*** are we not testing still?" - S "are you sure about this? this feels like an overly optimistic plan" - P "wait.. wait.. wait.. where's the data to back this? this seems off." - T "there's so much whitespace at the top" - A "I think this wouldn't work" - J.
the brutal feedback continued... but they're often followed by sessions and deep dives into the different areas in question. You could feel a certain passion towards betterment in the air. A certain intensity - geared towards pushing all Kalshians towards achieving their shared dream: an Eden where all events are pinned down by a trade.
The result: a 10x outcome, molded through unfiltered feedback and ensuing support. This is the Kalshian way.
Tarek & Luana
Kalshi was founded in 2018 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, who studied together at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tarek Mansour was born in California and spent his early years growing up in Lebanon. Lopes Lara is from Brazil, where she danced at an elite ballet academy affiliated with Russia’s Bolshoi Theater.
Tarek and Luana got into finance early during their time at MIT. Tarek worked at Goldman and Citadel, Luana worked at Bridgewater and Citadel. They noticed something common across all these places: a lot of trading stemmed from an opinion on a future event. For example, a lot of activity at Goldman at the time was focused on providing institutions with exposure to, or a hedge against, Brexit. To do this, Goldman would sell them complicated financial bundles (a bunch of swaps, options, etc.) at a high price… but these bundles were proxies: basically, a bunch of risk curves fitted together to approximate the binary/event exposure the customers were looking for. What you couldn’t do was just trade directly on the event itself, even though that would have been simpler and cheaper and was what people actually wanted. The option just didn’t exist.
Once Tarek and Luana identified the problem, they noticed it everywhere. The more they thought about it, the more the idea of an exchange for people to trade directly on events seemed obvious. That was the inspiration for Kalshi.
Our Backers
- Sequoia
- Y Combinator
- Charles “Chuck” Schwab
- Henry Kravis
- Neo
- SV Angel
Certification, Regulation & Compliance
Before Kalshi, markets that allowed you to trade on economically relevant events were illegal or unregulated. From day 1, we decided to take the harder path: build a fully regulated exchange with a deep commitment to compliance.
Kalshi is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Kalshi is regulated as a Designated Contract Market (DCM), which is an exchange designated by the CFTC to trade swaps, futures and options under the Commodity Exchange Act. A contract market can allow both institutional and retail participants. Other DCMs include the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). The CFTC monitors the daily activity of Kalshi and our CFTC regulated partners.
You can read more about our regulatory filings, rulings, and product filings on our regulatory page
We make money the way most exchanges do: we take a small fee on each transaction on our platform (none of the weird order flow or other stuff).
Engage with Kalshi
For media inquiries and interview requests, please contact media@kalshi.com.
You can also engage with us on social.
Press
PS We're Hiring
Locations
Our headquarters is located in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City.
594 Broadway, New York, NY 10012