Kalshi alternatives: the honest roundup

The verdict#

Polymarket is the best real money Kalshi alternative: the only other consumer exchange with deep books, and since May 12, 2026 its regulated US app takes anyone 18 or over. Robinhood is the pick if you would rather trade event contracts inside an app you already have. ForecastEx, through Interactive Brokers, is the pick if you want economics and climate contracts sitting next to a real brokerage account and never cared about sports. And if what you actually want is to try prediction markets without funding anything, that lane is free and legitimate: Manifold for play money on user-written questions, Metaculus for forecasting with no money at all, and PaperPicks, our own app, for practicing against live odds with a paper bankroll.

Which name is right for you depends on which of three things you are replacing: Kalshi's money, Kalshi's markets, or the risk itself. The rest of this page sorts all seven by that question.

Kalshi first, the baseline#

Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, live since 2021, where event contracts on sports, economics, politics, weather, and culture trade between 1¢ and 99¢ and settle at $1 or $0. It runs on iPhone, Android, and web, banks in ordinary dollars, pays interest on idle cash, and holds the deepest US books in most categories, which is why it is everyone's default. People go looking for an alternative for four reasons. Sports contracts are geofenced in roughly seven states while the state-versus-CFTC litigation plays out, so for some readers Kalshi simply does not work. The fee schedule changed on July 7, 2026, adding per-product multipliers to the taker formula, covered in our Kalshi vs Polymarket comparison. Its politics and world-event books are thinner than Polymarket's. And some people are not leaving at all; they want to practice before funding it, which Kalshi's separate web demo with simulated order books does not honestly provide.

Apps like Kalshi, sorted by what you actually want#

Kalshi's alternatives split into three lanes, and most disappointment in this category comes from shopping in the wrong one. Real money venues move actual dollars and require identity checks. Play money platforms never touch cash. Practice apps sit between: real odds, fake money. The roster of Kalshi competitors is longer than seven, since FanDuel, Coinbase, and Webull also run front doors to the same underlying exchanges, but those are broker fronts rather than distinct venues, and the Robinhood section below explains how that model works.

Everything in this table was checked on July 24, 2026.

Polymarket: the other real exchange#

Polymarket is the one direct answer to "I want a different Kalshi." Its CFTC-regulated US app, built on the QCEX exchange it bought in 2025, dropped its waitlist on May 12, 2026 and signs up US residents 18 and over with ACH or debit funding. Taker fees run slightly below Kalshi's, and its politics and world-event books are the deepest anywhere. It is the right pick for traders who lean global events, and for anyone who wants the second serious order book on their phone. The limitation is access: the US app is iOS-only as of July 2026 and carries a narrower catalog than the international site, which stays geo-blocked for US users, with VPN workarounds against its terms. The full fee-by-fee comparison is in Kalshi vs Polymarket.

Robinhood: event contracts inside your brokerage#

Robinhood put prediction markets inside its existing app, which makes it the lowest-friction Kalshi alternative in the US, since tens of millions of people already hold the account. The catalog is wide: sports including college games, economics, elections, crypto, entertainment, climate, even commodities and metals. The honest wrinkle is that Robinhood is a broker here, not the exchange. Until this spring nearly all of its contracts were listed on Kalshi itself. Rothera, the exchange it co-owns with Susquehanna, went live at the end of May 2026, and since early June Robinhood has routed World Cup, some baseball and tennis, and certain economics contracts there, while an estimated 60% of its volume still flows to Kalshi as of July. For much of the catalog you are trading Kalshi's markets through a different door, which matters if Kalshi's markets are the thing you wanted to leave. Sports contracts are blocked in Maryland, Nevada, and New Jersey.

ForecastEx via Interactive Brokers: the brokerage-grade pick#

ForecastEx is the exchange Interactive Brokers founded, and IBKR's Prediction Markets platform now trades event contracts from ForecastEx, Kalshi, and CME through one brokerage account, routing each order to the best net price. IBKR is deliberate about the catalog: economics, politics, and climate, and, per its July 2026 earnings call, no sports or entertainment at all, on the theory that clients should trade events that affect their portfolios. It offers two things nothing else here does. Positions pay an interest-like coupon, 3.13% APY as of July 2026, on their closing value, and your contracts sit beside your stocks and futures in one statement. The right user is hedging a real portfolio or trading Fed decisions and hurricane landfalls. The limitation is the same as the pitch: no games, and an interface that assumes you already speak brokerage.

Crypto.com: sports contracts inside a crypto app#

Crypto.com runs Sports Event Trading through Crypto.com Derivatives North America, the CFTC-regulated exchange that used to be Nadex. It is live for US users in July 2026 under the Sports tab of the main app: yes or no contracts on games, funded with USD or crypto, paying out in dollars the business day after the event settles. Nevada is the sore spot; Crypto.com is one of the platforms fighting that state's gaming regulator in a federal appeals court over exactly this product. It fits people already inside the Crypto.com ecosystem who want game markets without opening another account. The limitation: the catalog is mostly sports and thinner than Kalshi's, inside an app that is a crypto exchange first and an event-contract venue second.

Free alternatives to Kalshi#

The free lane splits by what stays real. Kalshi's own demo at demo.kalshi.co keeps the interface real but simulates the order books, and Kalshi's docs warn demo prices may not match real markets; our Kalshi paper trading guide covers it. Manifold keeps the trading real but invents its own currency and lets anyone write the questions. Metaculus drops money entirely and scores your probabilities instead. PaperPicks keeps the odds and the settlement real and makes only the money fake. All four cost nothing, and none of them has a deposit waiting at the end of a funnel.

Manifold: play money on questions anyone can write#

Manifold is a play money prediction market where users create the markets themselves, which produces questions no regulated exchange would ever list: niche science results, community drama, "will I finish my dissertation." You trade in mana, its virtual currency. Manifold tried a real cash sweepstakes layer and shut it down on March 28, 2025; since then it is pure play money, and the only exit for mana besides trading is donating it to charity at 100 mana per dollar. No KYC, works everywhere, genuinely fun. The limitation for anyone Kalshi-bound: market creators resolve their own questions, thin markets wander, and mana is abundant by design, so it teaches you very little about sizing discipline or reading a spread.

Metaculus: forecasting with no money at all#

Metaculus is not a market. You submit probability forecasts on long-horizon questions, AI milestones, geopolitics, science, elections, and the platform scores you against the community after events resolve, with medals, leaderboards, and tournaments that pay real prizes to top forecasters. Nothing is ever deposited, bought, or sold, which is the appeal: it is the purest calibration trainer on this list, and serious forecasters treat a Metaculus track record as a resume. Choose it if you care about being right more than about trading. The limitation is the mirror image of that: no order book, no prices, no positions, so none of the mechanics that make Kalshi feel like trading are here to practice.

PaperPicks: our practice app#

PaperPicks is ours, so read this entry knowing that. It is a free iPhone app that hands you a $100 paper bankroll and live odds mirroring public prediction markets, the same event contracts moving on the exchanges above: 7,000+ markets across sports, politics, economics, crypto, and entertainment. Positions settle when the real markets resolve, the record is permanent and scored server-side, and there is no signup or KYC because there is no money to protect. Nothing can be deposited, won, or cashed out, ever. It is built for anyone whose honest answer to "should I fund a Kalshi alternative" is "I don't know if I'm any good yet," because a few weeks of paper P&L answers that for free. The limitation: iPhone only, and paper money cannot reproduce the fear of losing real dollars. Nothing can. Download it on the App Store.

Which lane you belong in#

If Kalshi's state rules, fees, or catalog pushed you out but you still want real money on real events, open Polymarket, or Robinhood if convenience beats depth. If the money was never the point, Manifold is the fun version and Metaculus is the rigorous one. If the money is exactly the point but you are not sure you have an edge yet, practice first; what a real simulator should do sets the standard, and PaperPicks was built to meet it.

The wrong answer is picking a venue because a listicle with affiliate links ranked it first. Every venue on this page will still be here after you know whether you are any good.