Kalshi, one of the world’s largest prediction platforms and a de facto leader in the space, has announced plans to further expand its available markets. To this end, the platform is now taking action on the speed of tennis serves.
Guess the Fastest Serve, Win Your Market
The company has already sent a notice to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last Friday, the official regulator that oversees products and activities by Kalshi, and has been given the green light to continue.
The idea of the market is to keep things simple. Essentially, Kalshi will keep the option binary and ask users to guess if the fastest serve in a tennis match would be above or below a certain speed.
The exposure limit is $25,000 per strike per participant, with the platform introducing some safeguards to avoid insider trading – something it has strongly objected to.
The platform has specifically excluded any players’ immediate family, staff, league employees, players, and coaches from placing such bets, although it is not yet clear whether the prediction market has the capacity to enforce such restrictions and follow through with potential offenses.
Kalshi Taps an Unexplored Market with Huge Potential
Tennis is a particularly auspicious market to expand into, as well, as tennis already generates 90% of its betting handle from in-play bets, i.e., wagers placed on games in progress.
Kalshi is hoping to bank on the popularity of the sport and the live betting activity in particular by offering its prediction markets on a specific metric that no other platform does – speed of serving.
In the meantime, Kalshi maintains that it is not a gambling platform, but this claim has been challenged by users, attorneys general, and gaming regulators.