Kalshi CEO on Difference Between Sportsbooks and Prediction Markets

As scrutiny continues to increase and legal battles surrounding prediction markets are seemingly multiplying, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour went on The Axios Show to discuss some key differences, in his mind, between traditional sportsbooks and prediction markets.

“When a customer wins on a traditional sportsbook, they block that customer because those winnings are coming from the business model,” Mansour said, via the Sports Business Journal. When they lose, Mansour said, the sportsbooks will “give them promos and figure out how to bring them back.”

Winning bettors getting limited is certainly a problem and helps make Mansour’s case that sportsbooks are “designed for customers to lose.”

Meanwhile, when it comes to prediction markets, all action is welcome — largely because the traders are playing against each other, not the house.

Prediction markets make money on transactions rather than on the vigorish, unlike sportsbooks. Of course, the consumer typically doesn’t care how the platform profits, and that doesn’t affect the legality of either side — those issues still need to be resolved in court.