FAQ

Legally and economically, predictive markets sit in a category that overlaps with both gambling and derivatives trading depending on the venue and your jurisdiction. CFTC-regulated designated contract markets list event contracts under the US derivatives framework. Polymarket's international on-chain surface and Polymarket US are separate legal/operational surfaces with different regulatory status.

Practically, the trade-side mechanics — staking money on a probabilistic outcome, accepting that you may lose your stake — feel like betting. The information-content side is more like trading: prices reflect probabilities, you can hedge, and you can sell early. Where each platform falls on the legal/tax spectrum depends on where you are and what you trade.

Whatever the legal classification, treat the dollars on these platforms as risk capital you can afford to lose. EdgeLedger neither endorses nor restricts any classification — it surfaces data so you can audit your own decisions.

Polymarket's regional eligibility has changed over time and may change again. Polymarket's current help center lists the United States among restricted countries for the international on-chain platform, while Polymarket's terms also describe Polymarket US as a separate CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market operated by QCX LLC.

Check the current terms, help center, and entity-specific eligibility page rather than relying on stale summaries. EdgeLedger reads on-chain wallet data; it does not enable trading access on either Polymarket surface.

Kalshi's current help center says users can trade from many countries, subject to the Kalshi Member Agreement, identity verification, country of residence, and payment-method availability.

ACH, PayPal, and Venmo are described as unavailable for international users, while debit card, wire, or crypto rails may be available depending on region. Always verify current eligibility and funding methods before signup.

Tax classification varies sharply by jurisdiction and platform. Kalshi says users who meet IRS-defined reporting thresholds may receive tax documents such as 1099-INT, 1099-MISC, 1099-B, or 1099-DA depending on activity. Polymarket activity is on-chain/platform activity where record-keeping may fall on you depending on the applicable entity and jurisdiction.

What's consistent: keep a per-trade record with date, market, side, size, fill price, settlement date, fees paid, and realised P&L. Whether the income is gambling, capital gains, or ordinary depends on your jurisdiction and how the venue is treated locally — and it can change between years.

This isn't tax advice. Use the per-trade records as bookkeeping; use a tax professional to decide how to file them.

On Polymarket, settlement runs through the UMA optimistic oracle. After the underlying event, anyone can propose an outcome by posting a bond; if no one disputes within a typically-2-hour challenge window, the proposal becomes final. If someone disputes (with their own bond), resolution moves to a UMA token-holder vote that can take hours to days.

On Kalshi, disputes go through Kalshi's centralized market-integrity review rather than an oracle vote. File via support, citing the rules section and the source of truth — most disputes are reviewed within a short window after settlement.

Either way, your position is locked while a dispute is pending — no trading, no withdrawal of the disputed market's funds — until the dispute resolves.

Three reasons, in roughly increasing order of how much each contributes:

First, different traders. Polymarket and Kalshi have different user bases, different liquidity, and different aggregate views — even on the 'same' question, the marginal trader on each venue is different.

Second, different fees. Taker or maker fees, spread, slippage, network gas, bridge costs, payment-provider fees, and withdrawal friction sum to different costs on each venue. Liquidity providers price that in; the equilibrium quote reflects the venue's cost structure.

Third, different rules. The same headline question can resolve to different outcomes if the underlying rule text differs even slightly. The scanner can match titles; you have to verify the rules match before treating a price gap as edge.

When the gap exceeds frictions and the rules genuinely match, that's the cross-venue arbitrage opportunity EdgeLedger's Pro scanner is built to surface.

They look similar at a glance — both list event contracts, both use Yes/No prices, both pay $1 on the winning side. Underneath they're different products.

Polymarket's international surface is an on-chain venue on Polygon, with current docs describing pUSD as the trading collateral token backed by USDC; resolution runs through the UMA optimistic oracle. Polymarket US is a separate CFTC-regulated DCM surface. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market: custodial, matched through a central order book, funded through supported payment rails, and settled internally under its market rules. Tax documents on Kalshi are threshold- and activity-dependent.

The 'same trade' on both venues isn't necessarily the same product — read each market's rules before treating them as interchangeable.

No. EdgeLedger is read-only. It pulls market data and (for Polymarket) wallet position data; it never holds your funds, never signs orders, and never submits trades on your behalf. Acting on anything you see in the dashboard — including arbitrage opportunities — is a manual decision and execution on your part.

For Polymarket, you connect a wallet by pasting its public address; no signature is needed and no withdrawals are possible from the EdgeLedger side. For Kalshi, EdgeLedger reads market-level data via an API key and doesn't yet mirror per-user account state at all (per-account integration is on the roadmap).

Re-read the rules first. Most 'wrong settlements' are actually rules that resolved as written but differently from the reader's interpretation. The market-page rule text and the named source of truth are what determine payout — not the headline question.

If you've checked the rules and the source and you still believe the settlement is incorrect, file a dispute through the venue. On Polymarket, this routes through UMA's dispute mechanism. On Kalshi, file with support, ideally within 24 hours of settlement, citing the rule clause and the conflicting source.

Disputes are not a way to retrade losing tickets. A losing position whose settlement matched the rules is not disputable — only cases where the venue marked the contract against the rules-as-written.

EdgeLedger is built in the open. Bug reports and feature requests are welcome via the project's issue tracker on GitHub. Include what you were doing, what you expected, what happened, and any relevant URLs. Do not include wallet addresses or other sensitive account details in public issues.

If you'd like to contribute a new Learn guide or a glossary term, the same path works — file an issue describing what you'd like to add, and a maintainer can scope it before any work happens.