Kalshi operates like Nasdaq exchange

Kalshi is much closer to Nasdaq than FanDuel. It runs an exchange where one customer buys and another sells the same contract, so Kalshi earns when people trade, not when bettors lose. That changes the whole machine. Pricing comes from the order book, liquidity comes from outside market makers, and settlement follows preset rules tied to third party data sources instead of a sportsbook trader manually shaping lines and managing risk.1 2 3

• A sportsbook writes the line, moves the odds, and keeps the spread as house edge. Kalshi lists a contract and lets users set the price by bidding Yes or No. Retail fees net Kalshi roughly a 1% take rate on volume, versus the 4% to 5% hold common in sportsbooks.1
• Because Kalshi does not warehouse risk, its hard job is liquidity, not handicapping. It uses exchange mechanics like market makers, order matching, and surveillance. That is why firms like Susquehanna can trade there, and why tools like Dome can route orders across venues the way brokers do in stocks and crypto.1 3
• This structure also explains why Kalshi and Polymarket look similar to users but operate differently underneath. Kalshi uses a CFTC regulated, closed exchange with fiat rails and clearing, while Polymarket uses crypto rails and mostly zero fees, then monetizes with scale and data products.2 3

The next phase is a fight over who becomes the liquidity hub for event trading. If more brokers, sportsbooks, and trading apps plug into exchanges instead of running their own book, Kalshi can keep growing as infrastructure, with sports as the volume engine and other event categories layered on top.2 3 4