Kalshi Bets on America’s Midterms with New Election Center for Polling, Campaign Data and News | Today’s news
As prediction markets gain momentum for political predictions, Kalshi has unveiled a new polling hub to make its platform the primary destination for US election odds ahead of the November midterms.
Kalshi said Wednesday that it will post traditional campaign polls, fundraising data, campaign reports and business data for its own electoral markets on the new hub. The target audience ranges from political junkies and retailers to candidates and their campaigns.
“Candidates can see exactly what is and isn’t moving the needle in their race, instead of waiting days for the polls to catch up with them,” the company said in a press release. “This immediacy separates what is actually changing perception from what just dominates social channels and allows campaigns to compare their trajectory.”
The launch marks Kalshi’s latest effort to position prediction markets as a credible alternative to traditional polling and media coverage. Co-founder Tarek Mansour argued that market participants collectively reflect the “wisdom of crowds”. But critics say prediction markets are susceptible to insider trading and manipulation, which could affect public perception of the election.
Politics remains one of the most popular bets outside of sports, and trading has already seen significant growth this year ahead of the November semis, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of Dune Analytics data by Kalshi.
Prediction markets grew to 27% of sports betting during the World Cup
Trading in the prediction market soared during the hyped World Cup, far outpacing the growth of traditional bookmakers and fending off the competitive threat that companies like Kalshi now pose to the sports gambling industry.
Kalshi, the biggest player, has repeatedly broken his own trade records during the World Cup, doubling the peak he reached just a week before the start of the tournament during the New York Knicks’ dramatic playoff run, and reaching nearly 10 times what he was at many points earlier in the year.
Based on public data from the first month of the tournament, H2 Gambling Capital estimates that activity on prediction markets accounted for approximately 27% of all legal U.S. sports betting volume during the World Cup, up from 9% earlier in the year. The comparison is imprecise as prediction markets and gambling companies calculate activity differently and bookmakers have not yet released their latest internal figures. But it does illustrate the speed with which exchanges are taking hold.
In a clear sign of how the competitive dynamic has changed, Kalshi had more daily users of its phone app during the tournament than either of the two largest US online sports gambling apps, DraftKings and FanDuel, according to Apptopia.
