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Best prediction market platforms

Three platforms are published here so far, and they are not variations on one another: a US exchange named on the federal register, an offshore on-chain order book, and a play-money market where nothing is at stake. Below is how they rank on our nine-criterion model, with availability shown for your region.

Every score on this page is preliminary, and the badge next to it says so. We have rated the criteria that a fee schedule, a regulator’s register, a rulebook and a company’s own documentation can settle — costs, regulation, market breadth, deposits and withdrawals, promotions, and how a venue resolves a market and handles a dispute. Interface quality and support response time are unrated on every platform we cover, because rating them means opening an account and contacting a support desk, and nobody here has. Liquidity is unrated on the platforms ranked here: we hold no licence to redistribute the order-book and volume data that would measure it, and where a liquidity rating does appear elsewhere on this site it says in its own breakdown that it is an inference from a book we looked at, not a measurement we took.

Ranked platforms

  1. Kalshi

    8.0/10preliminary

    Best verifiable regulatory position

    Kalshi is a CFTC-designated contract market with identity verification and fiat funding options. Its fee schedule is now linked in our source log, including the general price-dependent formula and series exceptions. Check both country eligibility and the chosen contract before opening a position.

    RegulatedAvailability unverified
  2. Polymarket

    6.9/10preliminary

    Widest verified market breadth, if it will take you

    The broadest published category list of the three — 11 categories in its own fee schedule, covering every category we track — and a fee schedule that charges makers nothing and takers 0.04 to 0.07 scaled by price, so 100 crypto shares at 50¢ incur a $1.75 fee before rebates and geopolitics is free. The catch is access: Polymarket’s own documentation puts the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil among jurisdictions where you may close positions but not open them. This record covers the offshore book, not the separately designated Polymarket US entity.

    CryptoAvailability unverified
  3. Manifold Markets

    3.7/10preliminary

    Only if you want no money at stake

    Play money by design: Manifold states its currency “cannot be converted to cash”, and every user starts with M1000 free. That makes it the cheapest way to learn how contract pricing behaves, and it is why it ranks last here — a balance you cannot withdraw scores badly on deposits and withdrawals, and no licence backs it. Its documented offers are the fairest in the pool, with no deposit and no wagering condition, and worth nothing in money terms. Read the score as a measure of the instrument, not of the community.

    Play moneyAvailability unverified

Every platform reviewed

1. Kalshi

8.0Prelim

Kalshi is a CFTC-designated contract market with identity verification and fiat funding options. Its fee schedule is now linked in our source log, including the general price-dependent formula and series exceptions. Check both country eligibility and the chosen contract before opening a position.

Strengths

  • CFTC-designated contract market
  • Fiat deposits and withdrawals, no wallet needed
  • Default maker fee is zero, with charged series exceptions
  • Mobile apps on both platforms

Watch out

  • Country restrictions and account approval apply to international users
  • Narrower market selection than on-chain venues
  • KYC required before you can trade
  • Trading fees vary by contract price and series
$10
Min deposit
7
Markets
2021
Since
Go to Kalshi →Full review

2. Polymarket

6.9Prelim

The broadest published category list of the three — 11 categories in its own fee schedule, covering every category we track — and a fee schedule that charges makers nothing and takers 0.04 to 0.07 scaled by price, so 100 crypto shares at 50¢ incur a $1.75 fee before rebates and geopolitics is free. The catch is access: Polymarket’s own documentation puts the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Brazil among jurisdictions where you may close positions but not open them. This record covers the offshore book, not the separately designated Polymarket US entity.

Strengths

  • Deepest liquidity in the category on major markets
  • Fastest listing of new events
  • No maker trading fees under the published schedule
  • Public API with full order book access

Watch out

  • Requires a wallet and USDC — no fiat rails
  • International product has country restrictions; Polymarket US is separate
  • Thin depth on long-tail markets
  • Network fees apply to deposits and withdrawals
$2
Min deposit
7
Markets
2020
Since
Go to Polymarket →Full review

3. Manifold Markets

3.7Prelim

Play money by design: Manifold states its currency “cannot be converted to cash”, and every user starts with M1000 free. That makes it the cheapest way to learn how contract pricing behaves, and it is why it ranks last here — a balance you cannot withdraw scores badly on deposits and withdrawals, and no licence backs it. Its documented offers are the fairest in the pool, with no deposit and no wagering condition, and worth nothing in money terms. Read the score as a measure of the instrument, not of the community.

Strengths

  • No money at risk — play currency only
  • Anyone can create a market
  • Open API and public leaderboard
  • No KYC and no deposit needed

Watch out

  • Prices are not backed by capital, so they forecast less reliably
  • Market quality varies widely
  • No cash withdrawal
  • No mobile apps
$0
Min deposit
4
Markets
2021
Since
Go to Manifold Markets →Full review

Jump to

How to choose

Start with whether the platform will take you at all — that is a harder question here than in most categories, and the availability badge on each entry answers it before anything else does. Then look at what you would be trading against: a designated contract market, an offshore order book, or play money. Those are three different propositions and no single ranking collapses them.

Compare costs using the same number of contracts and the same entry price. Kalshi and Polymarket publish price-dependent formulas; a percentage without its calculation basis can mislead. Manifold’s play-money markets serve a different purpose and should not be presented as a cash alternative.

The ordering below follows the Editor Score, and the Editor Score is computed from criterion ratings alone. It has no access to whether we are paid by a platform: `computeEditorScore` takes ratings and nothing else, so a commercial relationship cannot reach it.

Frequently asked questions

Are prediction markets legal where I live?
It depends entirely on your jurisdiction and on the platform. Each platform page shows the availability we have verified for your region, and our legality guides cover the major markets. This is not legal advice — check your local rules.
How is this ranking put together?
Every platform is scored 0–10 on nine weighted criteria: liquidity, fees, regulation, market variety, payments, UX, resolution, bonuses and support. The full weights are published on our methodology page. Commercial relationships are not an input to the score.
Why does every score say “preliminary”?
Because we refuse to guess at the part of the model we have not done the work for. Interface quality and support response time are unrated on every platform on this site: rating them means opening an account, placing trades and emailing a support desk, and nobody here has. Liquidity is never measured by us — we hold no licence to redistribute the order-book and volume data that would do it, and a venue’s own marketing volume claim is not evidence; where a liquidity rating appears at all it is an inference from a book we opened and looked at, and its breakdown says so. Resolution used to sit on that list of things we could not assess, and it did not belong there: how a venue determines an outcome, what recourse a trader has and whether disputes leave a public trace are set out in rulebooks, oracle documentation, terms of service and deployed contract code. We have now read them for twenty-three of the twenty-four venues on this site — the exception is Augur, which by its own FAQ has no prediction market you can currently trade on, and rating how well a venue resolves presumes a venue. A missing criterion is not scored zero — its weight is spread across the criteria we did rate — and below 80% coverage the score carries the preliminary badge you see.
Where does each rating come from?
Expand the score breakdown on any platform page. Every criterion we rated carries a comment naming the specific fact and the source it was read from — a regulator’s register entry with its date, a published fee schedule, a help-centre article on deposit minimums. Criteria we could not source are shown as unrated rather than filled in. If a rating’s comment does not name evidence, it should not be there and we want to hear about it.
Do you earn money from these links?
From some of them. Where we do, the platform pays us a commission if you open an account, at no cost to you. Paid placements are labelled “Ad”. Compensation cannot affect an Editor Score — the function that computes it receives the nine criterion ratings and nothing else, so it has no way to know whether a platform pays us.