Kalshi now offers betting on election outcomes outside the U.S., including Australia, Ecuador, and the 2025 elections in Canada and Ireland.
As political wagers continue to rise in anticipation of the presidential election in the United States, the prediction marketplace Kalshi has expanded its offerings to include contracts for betting on the results of elections held in countries other than the United States.
The regulatory papers submitted to the Commodity Future Trading Commissions (CFTC) reveal that the contracts encompass national races from various countries, including Australia and Ecuador. According to the papers, Kalshi also announced the addition of markets for the 2025 races in Canada and Ireland.
Kalshi’s existing roster of election betting markets, which already includes more than a dozen contracts connected to the outcomes of the upcoming federal elections in the United States, is expanded with the addition of these markets.
As of the 23rd of October, Kalshi’s flagship market, which is titled “Who will win the presidential election?” has generated over $52 million in total betting volume since it came into being on the 7th of October, as stated on the website of Kalshi.
Following his victory in a landmark court battle in September, Kalshi released event contracts for wagering on the results of the US election on October 7. This event was the first time that the United States government has authorized the operation of a market for election prediction. It paves the way for other platforms, including Web3 platforms like Polymarket, to join the fray and potentially compete.
According to the website of Polymarket, as of October 23, approximately $2.3 billion is riding on the outcome of the presidential election that will take place in the United States in November. According to Maps Interlude, more than seventy-five nations around the world will hold elections in 2024. These countries include significant economies in the European Union, India, and Russia.
There are elections scheduled to take place in 2025 in a number of other nations, including Australia, Canada, Ecuador, and Ireland. The Federal Trade Commission (CFTC) has stated that election prediction markets like Kalshi pose a threat to the integrity of elections; however, analysts in the industry have stated that these markets frequently capture public sentiment more accurately than polls.
Event contract markets are a valuable public good for which there is no evidence of significant manipulation or widespread use for any nefarious purposes that the Commission alleges,” Harry Crane, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, stated in a comment letter that was submitted to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in August.
