CA40 Race; Place Your Bets

Robinhood gained massive popularity during the 2020–2021 meme stock frenzy (e.g., GameStop), attracting many new, younger retail investors. Its gamified elements (like confetti animations for trades) made investing feel fun and approachable—but also drew criticism for potentially encouraging risky or impulsive behavior.  It has faced several controversies and regulatory scrutiny over the years, including:

• Payment for order flow practices
• Outages during high-volatility periods
• Trading restrictions during the 2021 meme stock events (which led to congressional hearings and lawsuits)
• Fines for issues like misleading customers about best execution and other compliance matters

Customer reviews are mixed: the app often scores well (around 4.2–4.3 stars on app stores) for ease of use, but sites like Trustpilot show lower ratings due to complaints about customer service, account issues, or perceived platform limitations. Many established investors and reviewers note it’s great for beginners and casual traders but may lack the depth of tools offered by full-service brokers for advanced users.

Kalshi.com is the website for Kalshi Inc., a U.S.-based, federally regulated prediction market platform (often called an “event contract” exchange). It allows users to buy and sell contracts on the outcomes of real-world events, such as politics, sports, economics, weather, entertainment, crypto prices, and more.

What Kalshi OffersOn Kalshi, markets are structured as yes/no event contracts:

• You buy “Yes” if you think the event will happen (or “No” if not).
• Contract prices range from ~1¢ to 99¢ and reflect the market’s implied probability (e.g., a contract at 75¢ implies a 75% chance of “Yes”).
• If you’re correct at resolution (settlement date), each Yes contract pays $1; incorrect ones pay $0.
• You can trade in and out before resolution, just like stocks.

Popular categories include:

• Sports (NBA, NFL, college sports, PGA Tour, etc.) — this makes up the vast majority of volume (over 90% in recent periods).
• Politics and elections.
• Economics (inflation, Fed rates, unemployment, government shutdowns).
• Entertainment (Oscars, Grammys, Billboard charts, pop culture).
• News, weather, crypto, and niche events.

Like Robinhood’s stocks/crypto/options, you fund your account (ACH, etc.), place market or limit orders, and trade. However:

• Kalshi focuses exclusively on event contracts.
• Robinhood offers some Kalshi-powered event contracts inside its app (often with simpler fees and interface) but has fewer markets and lower depth/liquidity compared to trading directly on Kalshi.
• Fees on Kalshi are typically low (often a small percentage or flat per contract). Robinhood’s integration uses a flat ~2¢ per contract split.

Prediction markets like Kalshi are often praised for being more accurate than polls because participants put real money at risk.

On Robinhood, only three candidates are listed for betting purposes: Ken Calvert, Joe Kerr, and Esther Kim Varet.  Sorry Young Kim.  And sorry Lisa Ramierez.  Right now, it’s just a straight line and it looks like no bets have been placed.

So lt’s wander over to Kalshi, which has a reputation for acuracy. And there have been bets placed on the race and only three names are listed — Calvert, Kerr and Varet.  But Kalshi has real numbers with Calvert in the lead with 57%, Kerr comes in at 53% and Varet is at 34%.  No Young Kim.  No Lisa Ramierez.  Screen shots aren’t working for me, but what do these predictive markets know that the pollsters don’t?

Not sure how devastating this news for Young Kim and Lisa Ramierz.   But if it comes down to Calvert and Kerr, it shows that MAGA is losing faith with Trump, high gas prices and rising inflation are hitting the new district’s largest Latino and Asian populations.  A moderate like Kerr is getting bets he can peel off non-Trump Republicans and independents/NPPs.  These markets are worth tracking until there’s independent polls.