Albums | Why Regulated Prediction Markets Like Kalshi Are Rewiring Event Contracts in the US

Posted by Spice on April 21, 2025

Whoa! The idea of betting on real-world events used to sound like late-night talk radio. My gut said: risky, shady, too close to gambling. Actually, wait—let me rephrase that: there was always value in aggregating market beliefs, but the legal fog made most attempts clumsy and fragile. On one hand, markets reveal collective probability in a way surveys never can; on the other hand, regulators and exchanges had to ask hard questions about consumer protection and systemic risk.

Okay, so check this out—regulated platforms have started to bridge that gap. Hmm… they’re doing it by packaging event contracts like financial instruments, with legal wrappers and surveillance. At first I thought liquidity would be the killer constraint, but then realized that clear rules and trust scale liquidity faster than raw speculation ever could. My instinct said the market wanted transparency and custody, not anonimity—somethin’ about visible rules makes traders show up.

What’s different this time?

Seriously? There are three big shifts. First, formal regulatory approval means institutional players can participate without legal hair loss. Second, better onboarding and identity processes reduce manipulation vectors, so the prices actually mean something. Third, product design has improved—contracts are narrower, outcomes are binary or clearly measurable, and settlements are transparent, which matters when tens of millions of dollars hinge on a clear definition.

I’ll be honest: the name that keeps coming up is kalshi, and for good reason. Their model shows how you can offer event contracts under an exchange license, and that changes the playbook for using markets as information tools. On the flip side, the model still has trade-offs: rigorous disclosure and KYC can be friction for casual users, and not every question fits a binary contract well.

Here’s what bugs me about common narratives. People say prediction markets are just gambling dressed up. That misses the point that price formation gives a fast, aggregative signal that polls and pundits miss. But yeah, the gambling analogy helps explain human behavior—markets capture incentives, and incentives bias decisions. Sometimes the incentives are helpful; sometimes they’re perverse.

Initially I thought that open, permissionless markets were the purer form of prediction aggregation. On reflection, though, regulated platforms solve for scale and credible settlement. On one hand there’s freedom; on the other, there is stability and mainstream adoption. Though actually—balance is tricky—too much regulation can crush niche, high-value use cases that depend on speed and low friction.

How event contracts actually work

In practice the product is simple. You trade a contract that pays $1 if an event happens, $0 otherwise. The market price approximates the probability the market assigns to that event. But real-world design needs to define outcomes precisely, set expiration and settlement procedures, and guard against gaming. Those operational choices are where regulated platforms earn their keep.

Market structure matters. Order books with taker/maker mechanics, clearing guarantees, and rules for dispute resolution reduce counterparty risk and allow larger participants to commit capital. Smaller exchanges without these features end up with thin order books and volatile, unreliable prices. So liquidity providers prefer venues where the rules are clear—and where there’s a credible settlement mechanism if things go sideways.

Check this out—contract phrasing is a surprisingly big deal. Ambiguous wording creates disputes and freezes capital. That matters when contracts cover things like election results, economic thresholds, or corporate events. The legal teams behind regulated offerings spend as much time on definitions as engineers spend on the UI. It’s tedious and very very important.

Who uses regulated event contracts?

Formal investors and hedgers are a natural fit. Corporates hedge event-driven risks. Traders use contracts as short-term instruments. Policy shops and researchers use prices as real-time indicators of probabilities. Ordinary people with opinions also participate, but platform trust and educational UX determine whether they stick around.

Something felt off about early platforms that prioritized novelty over compliance. They attracted noise traders and trolls. Regulated exchanges, by contrast, target participants who value accurate signals and enforceable settlement. That brings both higher-quality liquidity and more conservative behavior, which sometimes dampens volatility but improves reliability.

On balance, this means the prices you see on regulated venues are often better inputs for decision-making than social media pulse checks. Not always—markets can be wrong—but they’re systematically useful, especially when combined with other data. Hmm… market prices are not gospel, but they are a powerful piece of the puzzle.

Practical use cases and limitations

Use cases are surprisingly concrete. Corporates price macro uncertainty. Event-driven funds hedge binary corporate outcomes. Researchers track evolving beliefs about policy moves. And yes, journalists and analysts use these markets to calibrate coverage. But there are limits: outcomes that are subjective or manipulable poorly suit market settlement. If the measurement is fuzzy, the contract becomes a conflict magnet.

Another limit is market design itself—if tick sizes or fee structures punish small bets, you get less participation and distorted probabilities. Also, liquidity begets liquidity; without early commitments, prices can be jumpy. Institutions can fix that by providing initial capital, but only if they trust the venue’s rules and compliance. So trust is both the input and the output.

My instinct says adoption will grow where the value proposition is measurable and direct. For hedging payoffs or aggregating policy expectations, event contracts are already compelling. For casual entertainment, though, the frictions around KYC and funding make other products more attractive. I’m not 100% sure how consumer adoption will play out long-term, but the enterprise and research applications seem solid.