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Two desks, one method

Markets we trade

We cover two kinds of Kalshi market: crypto price windows that open and settle in minutes, and sports markets that settle when the game does. Every card below goes to a live desk, a hub of what is open, or the lesson behind it.

A Kalshi contract is a yes-or-no question priced in cents between $0 and $1. Buy YES at 22 cents and you collect $1 if the event happens and nothing if it does not, so the price is the market's estimate: 22 cents reads as about a 22% chance. Every contract settles at $1 or $0, with no partial credit for being close.

Pick a desk

Where the coverage lives

Prices on these boards are Kalshi's, read live. They are not our picks, and no board is filled with sample numbers when nothing is open.

BTC 15-minute desk

Live

The shortest window we cover. Kalshi opens a fresh Bitcoin market every quarter hour with a target price, settled on a 60-second average of the CF Benchmarks index before the close.

Spot—
Target—
Up ask—

Checking the current Kalshi window

Open the 15-minute desk

BTC hourly desk

Same asset, a longer window. The hourly board lists a ladder of strikes at once, so you can see what the market charges for each level to beat before the hour runs out.

Open the hourly desk

Crypto markets

Which coins have short-window series Kalshi is actually listing, which ones have gone quiet, and what each settles against. Start here for anything other than Bitcoin.

See the crypto hub

Kalshi Perps

A different product: margin, funding charged every eight hours, and a position that can be liquidated. We don't trade them or link to them. The page exists so the mechanics are not a surprise.

Read how perps work

Sports markets

Twelve sport hubs, with live game markets wherever Kalshi has a series open and dated notes where it doesn't. Written plans sit beside the boards and get graded.

See the sports hub

The contract

What you are actually buying

Every market here pays the same way. A contract settles at $1 or at $0, with no partial credit for being close. Pay 22¢ for YES and you have spent 22 cents to collect a dollar if the event happens, and nothing if it doesn't.

That price doubles as the market's estimate. 22¢ reads as roughly a 22% chance, the same way sportsbook odds of +319 work out to about 23.9%. Your edge is the gap between that and your own number, written down first.

Two costs sit on top. The spread comes first: you buy at the ask and sell at the bid, so a 21¢ bid against a 23¢ ask costs two cents a contract to go in and straight back out. Then Kalshi's taker fee, 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), rounded up per order.

Both are worst where the market is closest to a coin flip. At 50¢ the fee alone is 1.75 cents a contract. A market you have no read on is the most expensive one you can trade, which is the argument against clicking a 15-minute window because it happens to be open.

Lesson 03: reading Kalshi prices and fees works the arithmetic with a calculator. Lesson 05: 15-minute markets covers what the short windows settle on.

The method

How we use these markets

The same three lines apply to a 15-minute Bitcoin window and to a fight that settles next month.

  1. Plan before the event

    Write your own probability first, from the matchup or the setup, not from the price. If the board isn't charging less than that, there is no trade, and sitting out is the position.

  2. Write the sell target

    Decide the exit with the entry and place the resting order before the window opens. Add the hold rule: what you do if the target never trades, and when you stop for the day.

  3. Grade in public

    Every plan is dated and locked before the event, then posted with the result, wins and misses alike. Nothing gets edited afterwards.

Read the full method

21+Only risk what you can afford to lose. Set a money limit before you start, take profits on purpose and stop when you hit your limit. Not financial or betting advice, and PM Countdown isn't affiliated with Kalshi. Gambling problem? Call or text 1-800-GAMBLER, or call, text or chat 1-800-MY-RESET.