Kalshi and Robinhood are two of the most popular prediction markets in the United States, but they differ in markets, fees, features, and a lot more that can make a difference in deciding which is best for you.
If you want the quick answer, Kalshi is the better overall prediction market. It beats Robinhood on fees, sports coverage, non-sports coverage, trading tools, and banking.
There's a catch worth pointing out. Kalshi supplies the contracts behind most of Robinhood's prediction markets, so Robinhood adds its own commission on top of the Kalshi exchange fee you'd pay anyway.
For the markets that Robinhood offers via Kalshi, you can just trade the same contract on Kalshi directly and pay less in fees.
That said, there's plenty to like about Robinhood. Its market variety is strong, and it has one category that no other prediction market app offers: education markets. If you want to trade Harvard tuition or college rankings, Robinhood is the only prediction market app that allows you to do it.
Both platforms welcome new users with a bonus. Kalshi gives you a $10 bonus once you trade your first $10, while Robinhood hands out reward stock worth up to $200.
Keep reading our Robinhood vs. Kalshi guide to compare the two platforms, including fees, markets, trading tools, banking, and everything else you need to decide which is best for you.
Kalshi vs. Robinhood Overview
Odds Assist Rating | 92/100 | 85.5/100 |
Fees | – Taker: $0.07-$1.75 per 100 contracts – Maker: $0.02-$0.44 per 100 contracts | Up to $0.02 per contract |
Welcome bonus | ||
Promo code | ODDSASSIST | None Required |
Available in | 50 states | 49 states |
Sports covered | 19+ markets | 15+ markets |
Non-Sports Markets | Politics, crypto, mentions, companies, tech, science, economics, finance, markets, culture, events, weather, climate, art | Politics, climate, commodities, crypto, economics, education, entertainment, technology, metals, elections, financial |
Payment Methods | Bank transfer, PayPal, Apple Pay, Cash App Pay, Venmo, credit card, debit card, wire transfer, crypto | Debit card, ACH |
Minimum Deposit | $10 | No minimum |
Mobile App | iOS & Android | iOS & Android |
Customer Support | Email, phone, live chat | Email, live chat |
State Availability – Winner: Kalshi
Kalshi is available in all 50 states, but doesn’t offer sports trading in Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, and Ohio.
Robinhood is available in all U.S. states except Maryland. Sports contracts are unavailable in Nevada and New Jersey.
Both have taken state-level heat, and both are still fighting it out in court. Kalshi's sports restrictions cover more states, while Robinhood is the only one shut out of a state entirely.
Check our prediction markets states guide and Robinhood states page for the current status of each case.
Sign-Up Bonus – Winner: Kalshi
Kalshi gives new users a trade $10, get $10 welcome offer. Use Kalshi promo code ODDSASSIST to claim it. The money lands as trading funds you can put straight to work on contracts.
Robinhood doesn't have a prediction market welcome offer at all. What you get with the Robinhood new user promo instead is a free stock worth $5 to $200 when you sign up and link a bank account or debit card. That $200 figure sounds impressive, but roughly 0.1% of users ever see it. Most walk away with $5.
Kalshi's offer has better utility. You get $10 in trading funds that work on any contract immediately. Robinhood makes you wait 3 trading days before you can sell the stock. After that, the cash must stay in your account for 30 days before you can move any of it to your bank.
Fees – Winner: Kalshi
Both platforms tie the fee to the contract price. Contracts priced near 50 cents cost the most to trade, and the fee gets smaller as a contract moves toward $0 or $1.
Kalshi charges between $0.0007 and $0.0175 per contract for taker orders. If you set your own price with a limit order instead, you pay between $0.000175 and $0.004375 per contract.
Robinhood used to charge a flat fee, but it switched to the same probability-based model on June 1, 2026.
The formula is Commission = k × P × (1 − P) × C, where P is the contract price, C is the number of contracts, and k is the fee constant. Standard users get a 10% constant, while Robinhood Gold members paying $5 a month get 5%.
Whatever the formula works out to, Robinhood never charges more than $0.01 per contract. The exchange handling your order adds up to $0.01 on top. Your maximum cost lands at $0.02 per contract.
Where these two differ most on fees is the maker/taker structure. On Kalshi, you pay significantly less for posting a limit order than for taking the price on screen. Robinhood uses a single rate that applies to every trade, so the way you enter a position has no effect on what you pay.
| Kalshi fees | Robinhood fees | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee model | Probability-weighted, maker/taker split | Probability-weighted, no maker/taker split |
| Taker cost | $0.0007 to $0.0175 per contract | Up to $0.02 per contract |
| Maker cost | $0.000175 to $0.004375 per contract | Same as taker (no maker discount) |
| Cheapest for | Traders posting limit orders | Robinhood Gold subscribers |
| Most expensive at | Contracts near 50 cents | Contracts near 50 cents |
User Interface – Winner: Kalshi
Robinhood has one of the easiest apps to pick up in this space, which counts for something if you're new to trading contracts. Prediction markets weren't what this app was designed for, though, and a few minutes inside makes that clear.
Contracts aren't the first thing you see when you open the app. You have to go looking for them, since they share space with stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto.
Sports and real-world markets are grouped tightly together, so basketball and football end up right beside real-world markets.
In fairness, Robinhood fixed the navigation problem on desktop. Sports gets its own section over there, and it's kept apart from the real-world categories.
I also like that Robinhood sorts player props and futures into separate tabs by stat category on mobile rather than dumping them into one long list.
What caught my eye is that the category list looks padded. Robinhood splits Politics and Elections into two sections when most prediction markets keep them together, and it does the same thing with Financial and Metals. You end up with a longer list that doesn't give you anything extra to trade.
What bothers me more than the layout is what Robinhood leaves out entirely.
Robinhood gives you a basic price-history chart but no order book, so you can't see the bids and asks behind any price you're looking at. There's no American odds display either, which makes the transition harder for bettors used to reading a market as +210 or -130.
Kalshi handles navigation with a two-level structure. You choose a category, then move between subcategories along the top. Open Economics and you'll find Inflation, Fed, and Growth as separate sections.
Open a game, and the outright winner, spread, total, and props are laid out in dropdowns.
Kalshi puts the full order book on every market, so you know exactly where the liquidity is before committing.
It also offers an Ideas feed, leaderboards, and user profiles with verified trades, giving the app a social layer.
Sports Coverage – Winner: Kalshi
You get the major American leagues on either platform, along with plenty outside them. Kalshi just covers more ground.
On Robinhood, you can trade sports contracts across:
- NFL
- NBA
- MLB
- NHL
- College football
- College basketball
- Golf
- Tennis
- Soccer
- MMA
- Esports
- Boxing
- Racing
- Cricket
- Chess
Here's the full sports list on Kalshi:
- Basketball (NBA, college)
- Baseball
- Hockey
- Football (NFL, college)
- Soccer (Many leagues)
- Tennis
- Golf
- MMA
- Boxing
- Lacrosse
- Rugby
- Darts
- Australian Rules
- Cricket
- Chess
- Motorsport
- Esports
Hats off to Robinhood for covering F1, cricket, and esports, since many prediction markets don't offer those sports at all. Kalshi one-ups that selection, though, giving you the same three sports plus darts, chess, lacrosse, and Australian Rules.
Kalshi also has contracts you won't find on Robinhood. City Titles is my favorite, where you take a position on whether one city's teams win a single championship or several by a set date. Instead of picking a team, you're trading a whole city's year across multiple leagues.
Check out our best prediction markets apps for sports guide to see which sports other prediction markets cover.
Non-Sports Coverage – Winner: Kalshi
Here's what you can trade on Kalshi outside sports:
Below are the non-sports categories that Robinhood offers:
- Elections
- Climate
- Commodities
- Crypto
- Economics
- Education
- Entertainment
- Financial
- Metals
- Politics
- Technology
Education is Robinhood's trump card. You can take positions on college tuition, school rankings, and other higher-ed questions, and nobody else in this space prices them, Kalshi included. If you follow that world closely, Robinhood is the only prediction market app where you can trade on those outcomes.
Overall, Kalshi offers more options for each major trading category.
Take climate, for example. Robinhood offers daily high temperature, daily low temperature, and rainfall. Kalshi offers those 3 plus hurricanes, natural disasters, and long-term climate change contracts.
Mentions markets are Kalshi's exclusive category. You trade on how many times a specific word gets said during a speech, an earnings call, or a broadcast.
Side note: If you're looking to get an edge on these markets, check out Prediction Markets Pro. We have mentions trackers for earnings, sports, politics, and entertainment, plus a set of non-mentions politics tools.
Sports Market Variety – Winner: Kalshi
Both Kalshi and Robinhood offer multiple ways to take a position on the same event.
Robinhood's sports markets cover game winners, spreads, and totals, plus player props in milestone format, where an NBA points market appears as 10+, 15+, or 20+ rather than one exact number.
Combos are available for sports contracts too, letting you bundle several positions into a single entry the way a parlay works.
Considering how recently Robinhood added futures, the selection is surprisingly wide. I found NFL coaching markets, including which coach exits a job next, alongside season win totals, division and conference winners, and awards like MVP and Coach of the Year.
Kalshi matches Robinhood market for market, then gives you a wider range of alternate lines and props on top, along with Combos for parlay-style trading.
Trading Tools & Limits – Winner: Kalshi
Both platforms support limit orders, which are the most important tool in prediction market trading. You set your price and wait for the market to reach it instead of taking whatever is on the screen.
From there, Kalshi pulls ahead. It shows a full order book on every market, so you can see the Bids and Asks at each price level before you size a position. Robinhood gives you a price-history chart and nothing else, which leaves you guessing at how much size the market will absorb.
A bigger issue on Robinhood catches new traders off guard. Because prediction market contracts count as a financial product, they fall under the Pattern Day Trading rule.
Most users are on a margin account by default. Make four or more day trades within five business days and you get flagged as a Pattern Day Trader. Once that happens, you can't open new day trades unless your portfolio closed above $25,000 the day before.
Prediction market trading is quick by nature. Buy a team in the morning, sell 30 minutes later, and you've made one day trade. Repeat that a few times over two days and you're flagged before you've thought about it.
There is a way around it. Switching to a cash account removes the PDT rule entirely, so you get unlimited day trades with no $25,000 requirement. The trade-off is that you can't trade with unsettled funds, meaning cash from a closed position isn't available for your next entry right away.
None of this applies on Kalshi. It operates as a dedicated exchange, so there's no PDT rule, no margin account, and no $25,000 threshold to worry about.
Banking & Payouts – Winner: Kalshi
The banking comparison plays out like the rest of this review, with Kalshi coming out well ahead.
- Bank transfer
- Debit card
- Credit card
- PayPal
- Venmo
- Cash App Pay
- Wire transfer
- Crypto
- ACH bank transfer
- Wire transfer
- Debit card
Most deposits on Robinhood are processed within 30 minutes.
Kalshi withdrawal options:
- Bank transfer
- Debit card
- Crypto
- PayPal
- Venmo
- Cash App Pay
Robinhood withdrawal options:
- Bank transfer
- Wire
- Debit card
With that many more ways to move money in and out, Kalshi wins this one without much argument.
Kalshi vs. Robinhood Verdict – Kalshi Is the Runaway Winner
Kalshi takes fees, sports coverage, non-sports variety, trading tools, and banking. That's not a narrow decision; it's a sweep of every category that shapes how you trade.
The detail that should end the debate for most people is where Robinhood's contracts come from. Kalshi supplies a large share of them, and Robinhood charges its own commission for the privilege of routing your order there. You're paying a middleman to reach markets you could trade at the source for less.
There are two cases where I'd still open a Robinhood account. One is if you're already trading stocks or crypto there and would rather not manage a separate app for contracts. And if you want to trade education markets, Robinhood is the only platform that lists them.
Beyond those two cases, Kalshi does the same job better and takes less of your money doing it.
Want to see other options? Check out our other guides:
