Kalshi disputes think tank’s $583M loss report

• The Roosevelt Institute estimates retail traders lost $583.5 million on Kalshi between July 2021 and May 2026.
• Kalshi rejects the findings, arguing the report misclassifies institutional market makers as ordinary users.
• The dispute lands as Kalshi posts record volumes and explores a possible public listing.

A new report from the Roosevelt Institute claims retail traders on Kalshi have lost more than half a billion dollars since the platform launched in July 2021, a finding the company disputes as fundamentally flawed.

The think tank’s analysis, the first of a planned four-part series called “The Hidden House,” puts retail losses at $583.5 million through May 2026. Kalshi published a lengthy rebuttal on July 10, arguing the report conflates trading-data classifications with user sophistication.

Follow the losses

The Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, says its figures come from a snapshot of Kalshi transaction data pulled through Dune Analytics before the exchange revoked public access to that dataset. Sports contracts accounted for $371.6 million of the estimated losses, more than two-thirds of the total, with exotics and mention markets making up smaller shares.

The report also found that 63.2% of “taker” revenue flowed to just 6.3% of matched orders worth $200 or more. It draws a parallel with earlier reporting on Polymarket, where a Wall Street Journal investigation found most users on Kalshi and Polymarket lose money overall, with profits concentrated among a small share of high-volume traders.

Kalshi hits back

Kalshi’s response calls the report’s methodology “hilariously wrong.” The company says the study takes “maker” and “taker” order classifications from its API and wrongly treats them as proxies for casual versus professional traders, when the same label can apply to either depending on how an order happens to fill. Kalshi also disputes the report’s framing of prediction markets as having a “house.”

In the post, Kalshi wrote:

“There is no ‘house’ on Kalshi, hidden or otherwise. Kalshi works by matching orders together, like all financial exchanges do.”

The company lists further objections, including that the report does not account for interest earned on user balances, that it overstates the demographics of “sophisticated” traders, and that comparable Polymarket data may be distorted by wash trading.

Kalshi has not disputed the underlying trade volumes, only how the report interprets them.

Money and lawsuits

The dispute comes as Kalshi’s business accelerates. Annualized revenue topped $2 billion in June, roughly triple its November 2025 level, according to a report from The Information, and the company has held early-stage talks with investment banks about a possible IPO, though a listing is not expected before late 2027 or 2028.

Rival DraftKings Predictions reported $1.3 billion in annualized volume for May, according to an SEC filing, up 24% month over month.

Kalshi’s regulatory picture is mixed. In April, the Third Circuit became the first federal appeals court to rule that sports event contracts are swaps under exclusive CFTC jurisdiction, blocking New Jersey from applying its gambling laws to the platform.

A Michigan judge separately barred Kalshi from taking sports bets in that state, and a group of California tribes lost a bid for a preliminary injunction against the company last year.

Final verdict pending

Roosevelt’s series has three more installments planned, and Kalshi has signaled it intends to challenge each one on similar grounds. The clash over methodology is unlikely to settle the bigger question hanging over the sector: whether courts and regulators treat event contracts as financial instruments or as a new form of sports betting.

With the Third Circuit’s preemption ruling still working through appeals and several state cases unresolved, that framing question carries more weight for Kalshi’s business than any single loss estimate.