Kalshi’s proposed college-admissions markets face criticism over student gambling

Kalshi’s plan to list contracts tied to college admissions rates at 22 selective US institutions has drawn criticism from The Cavalier Daily’s editorial board, which said it would turn applicants into commodities and add to distrust in higher education.

The proposed contracts would let adult users take positions on whether a school’s overall admission rate falls below, exceeds or lands at designated thresholds, such as 10%. Kalshi has filed the proposed markets with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but the contracts had not launched when Inside Higher Ed reported on the filing Oct. 23.

The markets would cover all eight Ivy League schools and institutions including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They would cover overall undergraduate application totals and acceptance rates, including regular decision, early decision and programmes such as QuestBridge, while excluding transfer and graduate applications.

Settlement would rely on colleges’ Common Data Set disclosures and their annual reporting to the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Kalshi has described admission rates as economically significant because they sit where education, labour markets and household finances meet.

The editorial disputed that rationale, saying it left prospective students out of the calculation and reduced their educational and post-graduate futures to an entertainment metric. The board linked the proposal to what it called a wider gamification of universities, citing declining admission rates and the growth of admissions counselling. It also said public confidence in higher education had fallen 21% over 12 years.

The editorial said Kalshi had paid college influencers and sponsored student groups to promote its applications. Citing a Wall Street Journal investigation, it argued that prediction-market companies regarded students as a potential source of demand because of reckless spending.

Kalshi’s rules would bar admissions, financial-aid, communications and other university employees with advance knowledge from trading contracts on their own institution. For UCLA’s market, the restrictions would also cover employees and contractors at application platforms or vendors that handle first-year application or admissions-record data.

Those controls have not resolved concerns about information advantages. The editorial argued that employees could exchange information across universities or within an institution, while Wharton professor Abraham Wyner told The Daily Pennsylvanian that every new betting market creates a possible insider-trading risk. He nevertheless said close scrutiny of a small market would probably limit opportunities for substantial profit.

Kalshi has previously penalised users for insider trading, including former Representative George Santos, who was barred and fined nearly $72,000. Admissions experts quoted by The Chronicle of Higher Education focused less on that risk than on applicants: Angel B. Pérez said the markets would put a process meant to benefit young people and families into the gambling industry and could heighten anxiety; Arun Ponnusamy said the effect on children was the greater concern.

The debate comes as prediction markets have broadened beyond sports to elections, climate disasters and geopolitical conflicts. Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics has warned that the products can frame private gain as public good while leaving underlying ethical questions unresolved, particularly for young people affected by the wider growth of betting.

Kalshi said it hoped to launch the admissions markets in the coming months, before regular-decision acceptances are released in spring 2027.