Understand a Prediction Market Bet Before You Compare Platforms
A yes or no contract, a price between 0 and 1, and a market that sets it. Not a bookmaker price, and not quite a back and lay price either.
A prediction market bet is a contract that pays a fixed amount, usually $1, if a stated outcome happens, and nothing if it does not. The price you pay, somewhere between 0 and 1, works as an implied probability rather than as decimal odds: 0.35 reads as roughly a 35 per cent chance. That is different from a bookmaker price, which is fixed odds set by one firm, and different again from an exchange back and lay price, which is two customers agreeing a number between themselves. Kalshi and Polymarket are the two names most bettors meet in this category. A cancelled or disputed event can settle at a fixed fraction, such as an even split, or at the last fair price, instead of simply refunding the stake. Check your country before you fund either one.
Three ways to price the same bet
Put a football match in front of three different desks and you get three different objects back, not just three different numbers. A bookmaker hands you fixed odds it set itself (2.10, take it or leave it). An exchange hands you a queue: back 2.16, lay 2.18, filled only against another customer willing to take the other side. A prediction market hands you neither. It hands you a price between 0 and 1, denominated in cents against a dollar, and calls that price the market's best guess at a probability. Football is one entry among many this site tracks sport by sport; the price format is the part that changes here, not the fixture list.
None of the three is "the odds", exactly (that word does a lot of unhelpful work across all three). They are three different contracts wearing similar clothes.
| What you check | Bookmaker, fixed odds | Exchange, back and lay | Prediction market, yes/no |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who sets the price | The firm sets it and can shorten it at any time. | Another customer sets it; you back or lay against them. | An order book of other traders sets it, in cents. |
| What you actually buy | A promise to pay if your selection wins, at the odds agreed. | A matched position, with someone taking the opposite side. | A yes or no contract paying a fixed amount if you are right, nothing if not. |
| How the price reads | Decimal odds, for example 2.10. | Decimal odds on both sides of the queue. | A number between 0 and 1, read as a probability. |
| Who takes a cut | The firm's own margin, built into the price you never see quoted separately. | Commission on the exchange, charged on net winnings. | A taker fee charged on the trade itself, not on the eventual payout. |
Fine. The table says "cents". Now the part that actually needs arithmetic.
Turning a contract price into odds you already understand
A price of 0.35 is not a strange new unit. It converts the same way a bookmaker's implied probability does, just run in reverse: decimal odds equal 1 divided by the price. Take a fresh number, one nobody on this site has used before: a contract trading at 35 cents.
1 ÷ 0.35 = 2.857, which rounds to 2.86. Read that as decimal odds and it sits right beside a bookmaker's 2.10 or an exchange's 2.16 (comparable, not identical; the contract behind the number is still a different animal, as the table above just showed).
Now the part every price-comparison table quietly skips: a fee changes that number, and it changes it before you find out whether you were right.
What a fee actually does to that price
Every platform in this category charges a fee on the trade, not on the win, and the exact formula is the operator's own; it differs between platforms and it changes over time (Kalshi's and Polymarket's own multipliers, and how the two compare, are covered in full on the Kalshi and Polymarket comparison, not repeated here). To see the mechanism without borrowing either platform's real number, use a clearly labelled illustrative figure: an illustrative 2 cents of fee per dollar of exposure, chosen only to show what a fee does to a price, not either platform's current rate.
Add that to the 35 cent price and the effective cost becomes 0.37. Run the same division again: 1 ÷ 0.37 = 2.703, which rounds to 2.70. The fee did not change what you thought would happen in the match. It moved the number you are actually being paid for being right, from 2.86 down to 2.70, before a single ball is kicked.
A price is a probability. A fee moves it.
What happens when the match does not settle cleanly
An abandoned match on a sportsbook usually means your stake comes back. A prediction market contract does not automatically work that way. As a general mechanic of the category, not one platform's specific rule, a cancelled or genuinely ambiguous event can settle at a fixed fraction, an even split down the middle, or at the last fair price the market showed before things stopped making sense, instead of simply refunding what you paid.
That single sentence is worth more than it looks. It means the "worst case" on a prediction market contract is not always "you get your money back". Sometimes it is "the contract pays half", and half of a $1 payout on a position you bought at 35 cents is a real loss, not a wash. An abandoned event gets settled entirely differently again over on the horse racing page, which is one reason the two are worth reading as separate mechanics, not one rule with two names.
Where a broker's tool actually fits
If you already use a broker for the exchange side of this site, the obvious next question is whether the same login reaches a yes/no contract too. Sometimes, in part. This site lists BetInAsia, MadMarket and Sportmarket for this category, in that coverage order, not for their fee formulas or their country lists (that detail, plus a live conflict between two of them worth reading before you register anywhere, sits entirely on the Kalshi vs Polymarket comparison), only as a starting point for which broker's own page to check first.
BetInAsia sits first in that order; not for you if you would rather trade the moment you sign up than spend five minutes confirming its current page still lists what this site credits it with. MadMarket folds this category into Edge, a tool built around ten-plus bookmakers and exchanges at once, so a prediction-market line sits beside conventional odds rather than getting its own screen; not for you if you want a single dedicated app for this and nothing else. Sportmarket runs its prediction-market row through your existing sportsbook login, so there is no second account to open, a convenience with its own catch: you inherit whichever version of the product Sportmarket currently supports, not necessarily the operator's full one.
None of that replaces the operator's own terms. It is a starting point, not a verdict, and every broker's listing here can move faster than this page does.
Contracts are one shape among several this cocoon covers. If your interest is really in where the size behind a price actually sits, sport by sport, that page stays with conventional markets. If a fixed clock and a paddock instead of a countdown suits you better, racing still runs on the same order-book idea, priced the old way. And if odds are the format you actually trust, the exchanges ranked by what you actually bet on is the more direct route; the broker comparison lines up the four side by side for whichever door you pick.
Before you read a broker's access claim at face value
A broker's marketing page can say a great deal about "access" without saying much about your specific country, your specific funding method or this week's fee schedule. What a broad access claim actually covers, and where it stops, is worth reading before any of the three brokers above get your documents. It was written about exchange access broadly, but the same caution applies here: a claim is not a confirmation, and a coverage list is not a guarantee that today's version of the product is the one you were told about.
Questions people ask
Is prediction market betting the same as sports betting?
Not quite. Both let you stake money on a sporting outcome, but a sportsbook sells fixed odds and a prediction market sells a yes/no contract priced between 0 and 1. The mechanics of settlement, fees and what happens to a cancelled event all differ. See the comparison table above for the full picture.
What does a Yes/No contract price actually mean?
It is read as an implied probability. A price of 0.35 suggests the market rates the outcome at roughly a 35 per cent chance. Multiply that logic by 1 divided by the price and you get a number that behaves like decimal odds, 2.86 in that example, useful for comparing against a bookmaker or exchange price side by side.
How is Kalshi different from Polymarket?
Both trade the same shape of yes/no contract but under different rulebooks, different funding methods and different fee formulas, and their country lists do not match either. Those specifics change often enough that they get their own page: see the Kalshi vs Polymarket comparison for the detail, sourced and dated by snapshot.
Are prediction markets betting, legally speaking?
This page will not call it either way. Each platform states its own rules on who may trade and where; courts in different countries are still working through the question for sports contracts specifically. Read the operator's own terms and check your country's law before you fund an account.
What happens if the event I bought a contract on is cancelled?
Expect the contract to settle at a fixed fraction, often an even split, or at the last fair price shown before the market froze, rather than an automatic refund of your stake. Read the platform's resolution rule before you buy, not after.
Can I compare a contract price with a bookmaker price directly?
Only after converting it. Divide 1 by the contract price to get a comparable decimal-odds figure, then compare that against the bookmaker or exchange number, remembering the fee sits on top of the contract price and the bookmaker's margin sits inside its quoted odds already.