Kalshi Caps Deposits at $2,500 a Month for Traders Under 21

Prediction market platform Kalshi is enhancing its consumer protection measures for younger users amidst a rising tide of scrutiny around the event-based trading platform. The measures include putting a limit on how much money its youngest users can bring onto the platform. As reported by Bloomberg, Kalshi said on October 27 that users aged between 18 and 20 will automatically be moved into “special accounts” with a monthly deposit limit of $2,500. Anyone in this group holding more than $1,000 will also get an alert if they put over 25% of their balance in a single trade. 

Kalshi has said that these changes are being done to strengthen education for their newer traders. The minimum age to use the platform stays the same with co-founder and COO Luana Lopes Lara stating that “like the stock exchange, Kalshi is available only to traders 18 and older.” 

New York Has Been Looking Closely at Kalshi’s Younger Users

The news comes at a time when the platform is facing a lot of legal pressure. New York’s Attorney General is suing Kalshi for allegedly running illegal gambling that is open to people under 21. The state’s Gaming Commission has separately gone to court to force Kalshi to hand over records on its under-21 users and sports contracts. 

The platform is also facing other legal headwinds from Washington. The bipartisan Prediction Market Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., would put prediction markets under tighter CFTC oversight with mandatory age verification and self-exclusion tools. The NBA and PGA Tour have separately pushed for a 21+ minimum age. All of it is landing with the midterm elections less than a week away.

Kalshi Compares Itself to a Stock Exchange

Kalshi’s main argument for keeping the minimum age to 18 to use the platform is that it works like a federally regulated exchange that is more comparable to a stock exchange than a sportsbook. The new rules actually make that comparison a little harder to hold up. A 19-year-old can open a brokerage account and deposit $50,000 and place all of it in one stock with nobody placing any sort of limit caps or an alert to diversify. 

Critics are pointing to these measures put in place for this age group as an indication that the platform is conceding to carrying gambing-like risk for young users. Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy at Better Markets, an investor-protection group, described the limits as “pretty stunning admission” about the real nature of the platform, according to Bloomberg. 

The Cap Still Leaves Plenty of Room

On the commercial side, Kalshi isn’t giving up much. Traders aged 18 to 20 account for about 4% of the platform’s trading volume. At Kalshi’s size that is still billions of dollars in sports trades this year, though it remains a small slice of the overall business.

The limits are also softer than they look at first glance. A $2,500 monthly cap still adds up to $30,000 a year in fresh deposits. The cap only covers new money, and nothing in Kalshi’s announcement limits how much a young trader can stake from funds already in their account, winnings included. The 25% alert is just a warning. Users can read it, close it and place the trade anyway.