Kalshi Expands into College Football Prediction Markets Ahead of 2025 Season
Prediction operator Kalshi has added college football betting, with 32 games listed as of July 2. That list includes Texas at Ohio State on Aug. 30 as two college football national championship odds favorites square off.
Kalshi's expansion into the college football space follows its previous expansion into other sports markets, including NFL games and the NCAA's March Madness basketball. The site allows consumers to bet on binary outcomes and has increasingly blurred the distinction between prediction markets and traditional sports gambling.
The inclusion of college football places Kalshi on more contentious terrain. While most US states legalized sports wagering after 2018, several still prohibit or limit college sports betting.
Conversely, Kalshi is accessible in all 50 states to anyone aged 18 and older, bypassing the state-level sportsbook licensing and presenting itself as a financial market. This age limit is considerably younger than the usual 21 that the best sports betting sites with licenses demand.
Kalshi maintains very stringent eligibility restrictions to preclude manipulation or insider trading. Present and past competitors, coaches, team staff, league staff personnel, the team owners themselves, and their immediate household or family members are ineligible to trade.
These limits are assigned on a per-team basis rather than per league, so only teams involved in an event are prohibited from trading that event.
It's a problem of enforcement. Kalshi's recent error, when a candidate for governor in California was permitted to bet on his own election outcome, raises questions about how well these policies will function in practice.
The only available markets for the new college betting segment are moneyline-type bets.
NCAA considers loosening betting bans
The expansion follows advancements in collegiate sports. The NCAA Division I council recently voted to propose a rules amendment to allow Division I students and athletics personnel to legally place professional sports wagers.
This would represent a dramatic reversal of the NCAA's long-standing ban on gambling. However, the bill is still not official and needs to be approved by Division II and III representatives before being officially ratified in October.
In April, the Board of Directors voted nearly unanimously to deregulate wagering at the professional level but maintain the prohibition on college sports and the disclosure of confidential information.
Institutional policy can override NCAA approvals. For example, the contract between football coach Kalen DeBoer at the University of Alabama, for instance, prohibits him from betting on pro and college sports and prohibits further endorsement or promotion of gambling activity by players or staff
