It’s no secret that Kalshi wants to be your sportsbook sports event contract provider, and as a consumer, I’m here for it. Give me all the options available to mankind to place a bet trade a sports event contract.
The legality issue? Not for me to decide. Honestly, I’d be all-in on a prediction site, but using sweeps coins, which can only be purchased via crypto held by American farm workers, with all of it falling under the purview of some dude named Ricky who works in the Division of Corn at the Department of Agriculture. I mean, give me a $10 deposit bonus, and we good, y’know?
Having said that …
What the heck, Kalshi?
By now, you may or may not have heard about the kerfuffle over NFL win totals, which — based on my limited ability of sussing out Discord and reading Kalshi markets — were mostly settled on Dec. 22. One key issue, however, when it comes to settling NFL win totals on Dec. 22 is the fact the regular season did not officially end until Jan. 4, and there remained games on the calendar for all teams. As a result, many — if not most NFL totals markets — were settled incorrectly.
And people in the Kalshi Discord were not exactly overjoyed and/or understanding of this development — and rightly so.
On Dec. 22, someone posting as “RealityBreaker” summed it up thusly: “WTF IS GOING ON WITH NFL WIN/TOTALS IT RESOLVED BUT ITS NOT RESOLVED YET.”
One might think at that point Kalshi would realize they made an error and take steps to fix it immediately.
One might think.
Hold on
Instead, what appears — and again, this is based on my reading of Discord — bettors event contract buyers were simply (and eventually) reimbursed their money, without the winnings being paid out.
Fast forward to Jan. 6, and the issue was still top of mind, as evidenced by this Dustin Gouker tweet.
But as the day wore on on Jan. 7, the issue seemed to be settled, with winnings paid out.
“It was quickly resolved, people were paid out in full, including winnings,” a spokesperson for Kalshi confirmed with InGame.
Which is nice but … how in the world did this take weeks to get this right? Why did it take non-stop complaining and heaven knows how many emails to Kalshi support?
I swear, the first and only thing that popped into my mind was that Seinfeld episode where George decided to invent an entire company and job — Vandelay Industries, latex salesman — in an effort to circumvent the unemployment system. The episode ends with this now classic line …
I feel this is an apt metaphor here. Kalshi basically created a category to circumvent the sports betting world and yet, here it is, pants down on the floor, unable to get the most basic stuff right.
Do regular ol’ sportsbooks have these problems? Sort of, from time to time. I’ve been part of stories where a rebound is credited to one player, later changed to another player, and there is an argument about who owes who what.
But in all my time on this Earth, I have never seen a market/bet be settled on something that is so plainly and obviously wrong. This isn’t a “Was Zelenskyy wearing a suit?” situation with some wiggle room to debate; this is more akin to a “Is there measurable water on the planet humans reside on?” type of deal.
Of course the San Francisco 49ers won more than 12 games. Anyone with the ability to read and understand numbers can see that.
Why did it take this Herculean effort — or, really, any effort at all — for Kalshi to get this right? This is something that a five-year-old can very literally figure out.
Be better
If Kalshi wants to be taken seriously as a sportsbook-adjacent whatever — prediction market, event-contract marketplace, it’s a wazzy, it’s a whoozie — this can’t happen. Not with the whole internet staring at the standings yelling, “Uh, guys? The season isn’t over.”
You don’t get to sell yourself as the smarter, cleaner alternative to sportsbooks and then botch something as basic as counting to 17. You can’t pitch regulators on elegant price discovery while settling markets in the middle of the season. Oh, and let’s not forget this is not even betting. It’s investing! These are financial instruments.
If prediction markets want credibility, they have to nail the fundamentals, and not after Discord meltdowns, not after two weeks of “we’re investigating,” not after Dustin Gouker tweets about it. Immediately. Quietly. Automatically.
And again, to be abundantly clear, I want Kalshi to succeed. I want more markets, more innovation, fewer roadblocks between “I have an opinion” and “I can stake a position on it.” But that only works if this stupid stuff doesn’t happen.
Settle a market wrong, especially on something a toddler with a toy soldier up its nose can verify, and all the high-minded talk about being a sophisticated information platform evaporates.
So, yeah. Fix the pipes. Tighten the screws. Hire a five-year-old with an iPad. This is not, in any way, brain surgery.
