It has been an active few weeks for Kalshi, as the platform continues to make its mark in the industry. On Monday, it launched NBA playoff markets to the public for the first time, drawing about $1 million in trading volume.
As reported first by industry analyst Dustin Gouker via The Closing Line, Kalshi launched single-game Major League Baseball markets. Users can now bet and trade on which team will win each game on the MLB schedule.
This comes on the heels of multiple states, including Nevada, New Jersey, and Maryland, issuing cease-and-desist orders to several sports prediction markets for allegedly offering illegal sports betting within their jurisdictions. Still, Kalshi has continued to expand into new sports, with the CEO stating they are not concerned about the controversy. The platform currently offers sports predictions to customers in all 50 U.S. states.
The addition of MLB markets is particularly notable given developments in March, when the league expressed concerns about sports event trading in a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). An MLB official urged the CFTC to establish integrity frameworks for exchanges like Kalshi if they were to enter the sports betting space.
“MLB has supported legal sports betting at the state level based on robust regulation and relationships in which sports leagues are viewed as partners, and the integrity of competition is considered paramount,” the letter stated. “If the CFTC decides to permit sports event contracts, this same integrity framework should be applied.”
The letter also noted that event contracts typically exclude player props or single-game events, where inside information could influence betting. However, the league acknowledged it expected these types of bets to emerge soon.
MLB’s prediction has now come to fruition. On Wednesday afternoon, Kalshi notified users that they could buy, sell, and trade contracts on individual MLB games.
Early activity totaled more than $167,000 across 15 matchups. The Cubs–Padres game alone saw over $14,500 in open interest, while the Mets–Twins matchup drove a large portion of the volume, thanks to New York’s eighth-inning rally and Minnesota’s dramatic tenth-inning walk-off win.
Last month, Kalshi’s push to offer all men’s and women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament games resulted in around $500 million in trades—approximately 16% of what the American Gaming Association (AGA) estimated traditional sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel would generate. That figure was more than 15 times the volume Kalshi handled during the Super Bowl, when it recorded $27 million in trading.
