No traditional online sportsbook is legal in California in 2026: DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM and Caesars are all geofenced out. But CFTC-regulated event contracts on the same NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL outcomes are legal under federal commodities law. Here's what's allowed, why, and how to use it.
Event contracts are CFTC-regulated financial instruments that pay $1 if a real-world event happens and $0 if it doesn't. They're not bets, not stocks, and not options, and they're legal in California. Here's how they actually work.
Kalshi is the largest CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange and it's legal for California residents. This walkthrough covers signup, KYC, funding, your first trade, and withdrawal: the path most California traders follow in under fifteen minutes.
Kalshi accepts California residents. It's a CFTC-regulated exchange, not a sportsbook, though its sports contracts face an unsettled court fight. Here's the legal framework, the latest rulings, what you can trade and how to open an account.
Spain, France, England, Argentina, and Brazil sum to about 60% of the implied probability across both Kalshi and Polymarket: the flattest top of any World Cup cycle in a decade. Here's the full field, the cross-platform spreads, and where a California trader can find value.
USMNT and El Tri are the two most-traded national teams on every US prediction market. And the two whose pricing tells you the most about how home-crowd flow distorts a market. Here's how Kalshi and Polymarket price both hosts, where the lines disagree, and how a California trader should navigate the spread.
SoFi Stadium hosts eight 2026 World Cup matches, including a July 4 Round of 16 fixture. For California fans, those are the eight biggest legal prediction-market events of the summer. Here's the schedule, the markets, and how to trade each one.
Spencer Pratt is the most-traded longshot of the 2026 California cycle, sitting at 12-28% on Kalshi and Polymarket for the June 2 LA Mayor election. The number says less about his odds than about how shallow markets price celebrity flow.
The Federal Reserve's May 5-6, 2026 FOMC meeting is the most-traded macro event on Kalshi this quarter. Rate-decision contracts have absorbed seven-figure volume in the lead-up. Here's how to read the board, including the cleanest cross-trades against CPI and jobs.
Polymarket's Eurovision 2026 winner market has $49M in volume: Finland leads at 35%, France at 13%, Denmark at 11%. This is fully tradable from California ahead of the May 16 final in Vienna.
Thunder-Lakers, Spurs-Wolves, Knicks-76ers, Pistons-Cavaliers. Four series, sixteen possible games, and the deepest two-week stretch of NBA prediction-market liquidity of the year. Here's what's tradable, where, and at what price.
On April 22, 2026, Marketplace reported both major US prediction markets are preparing to offer perpetual futures: a leveraged, no-expiration derivative that until now has only existed offshore. Here's what they are, why now, and whether you should care.