TLDR
- Kalshi’s parlay maker fees have generated $26 million since launching on Aug. 20.
- The fee is set at half the taker rate, double Kalshi’s standard maker fee.
- Parlay maker fees now make up most of Kalshi’s total maker fee revenue.
- Parlay volume hit a record $1.49 billion on Sept. 13, the first NFL Sunday of the season.
- The fee appears in Kalshi’s online table but is missing from its July 7 PDF fee schedule.
Kalshi has collected $26 million in maker fees on parlay bets since introducing the charge on Aug. 20, according to data reviewed by Ingame.
The fee applies to market makers, the traders and firms that supply prices on parlay bets, rather than the bettors who accept them.
It marks the first time Kalshi has charged this group for parlays since the product launched a year ago.
How the Fee Works
Kalshi runs parlays through a request for quote system. A bettor asks for a price on a combination of outcomes, and a market maker responds within seconds.
The new maker fee is set at half of what takers pay. That is double the maker fee Kalshi charges on its standard, single outcome markets.
Uncorrelated NFL parlays are still exempt from the fee. Those bets remain free for market makers during football season.
The fee shows up in Kalshi’s online fee table. It does not appear in the downloadable PDF version of the schedule, which is still dated July 7.
On Sept. 12, Kalshi collected $1.7 million from parlay maker fees alone. That single day topped the exchange’s average combined fee revenue from August 2025.
Total maker fees across all of Kalshi’s markets passed $2.5 million that same day. Parlays now make up most of that total.
The extra revenue has pushed Kalshi’s daily fee income close to levels last seen during the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
In the seven days ending Sept. 15, Kalshi averaged $12.3 million a day in fees. That compares with $12.9 million a day in the week ending July 7.
Without the new parlay maker fees, the more recent weekly average would have been just under $11 million.
Parlay Volume Keeps Climbing
The fee has not slowed betting activity. Kalshi passed $1 billion in daily parlay volume for the first time on Aug. 29.
It broke that record three more times over the following weeks, reaching $1.49 billion on Sept. 13, the first NFL Sunday of the season.
Volume figures count both sides of each trade. Market makers, often professional traders, supply most of the money because many parlays carry long odds.
Looking only at bets placed by takers, a record $68.4 million was staked on parlays on Sept. 13. That was about 11% of Kalshi’s total taker volume for the day.
Since parlays launched in September 2025, takers have lost more than $380 million before fees and $620 million after fees.
Market makers have earned $24 million in profit after fees since the new charge began. That is less profit than in each of the three prior four week periods.
Prices for parlays have also shifted. On uncorrelated non-NFL combos, the average daily markup charged by makers rose from about 0.55% before the fee to about 3.1% after it.
Kalshi faces competition from Polymarket US, which opened parlay betting to all users the same day Kalshi’s fee began. Polymarket US pays market makers a rebate across its exchange instead of charging them a fee.
