NFL Prices: Kalshi vs Polymarket vs DraftKings, 1.3c Apart
The same game, three venues, three prices. A pre-kickoff snapshot of how NFL outcomes get priced across two exchanges and a sportsbook.
Published 2026-10-09 · Data as of 2026-10-09 · Market & data intelligence · Educational, not advice.
Before Sunday's games, Delta Arc snapshotted 121 NFL lines across Kalshi, Polymarket and DraftKings. The same outcome often carries three different all-in prices, usually a cent or two apart. Polymarket came out cheapest most often. We explain what an all-in price means, why fees and structure move it, and why we saved the snapshot.
On 2026-10-09 at 13:56 UTC, before the weekend's kickoffs, Delta Arc's BM Dash took a single snapshot of NFL pricing: 121 lines across 15 upcoming games, quoted on Kalshi, Polymarket and DraftKings at the same moment. This is a picture of that moment, not a live reading. By the time you read it the prices have moved.
The point of the exercise is not to tell you what to buy. It is to show you something most people never see laid side by side: the same outcome, priced three different ways, and why the three prices disagree.
What an all-in price actually means
Every number here is the all-in cost, to a buyer, of a contract that pays $1 if the outcome happens. Lower is cheaper. A price of 59 cents means you pay 59 cents now for a dollar later, which the market is treating as roughly a 59 percent implied chance.
Two of the three venues are exchanges. On an exchange you are not contracting against the house. Every contract has a buyer and a seller, both of them customers; the exchange matches them and collects a fee, and never takes the other side itself. The current price is the best ask — the lowest price at which a seller will trade right now — and it shifts as new orders arrive up until the game.
So the fee matters, and we fold it in. For Kalshi, per Delta Arc's method, the price is the best ask plus Kalshi's taker fee, which Kalshi's fee schedule sets at 0.07 times contracts times price times one-minus-price, rounded up to the next cent. Polymarket, per Polymarket's documentation, charges sports takers 0.05 times shares times price times one-minus-price, and the Polymarket prices shown already include it. Notice the fee is largest in the middle of the probability range and shrinks toward the edges.
DraftKings is a different kind of animal
DraftKings is not an exchange. It is a sportsbook: it posts its own odds and holds the other side itself, and the posted price already carries its margin, the vig. To make it comparable, the DraftKings figures here are the implied probability of the posted American odds, vig included, drawn from Polymarket's odds feed and shown alongside the ESPN odds board.
That is the structural line this whole post sits on. On the exchanges the price is a handshake between two customers. At the sportsbook it is a number the house chose. Comparing them is price information, nothing more; it says where three venues landed, not which one you should use.
How far apart the three landed
Out of 121 lines, Delta Arc's dash found the cheapest venue was Polymarket on 78 of them, DraftKings on 25, and Kalshi on 18. On the 85 lines priced on both exchanges, Polymarket came in cheaper than Kalshi on 84, with a median gap of 1.3 cents per $1 of payout. Kalshi, meanwhile, beat DraftKings on the same outcome on 34 of 84 comparable lines.
The gaps are small and they narrow as the market type gets more crowded. By Delta Arc's count the median gap between the cheapest and dearest venue was 1.6 cents on moneylines (30 lines), 1.3 cents on point spreads (40 lines), and 1.2 cents on totals (51 lines). More venues quoting the same thing tends to squeeze the spread.
Where they disagreed most
A few outcomes stretched wider. On Tennessee to win against Houston, DraftKings sat at 23.3 cents, Polymarket 23.5, Kalshi 26.0. Same outcome, same minute, three answers.
At the favorite end, the dash logged Kalshi's biggest moneyline favorites of the weekend: Houston over Tennessee and Jacksonville over Philadelphia both near 79.0 cents all-in, about a 79 percent implied chance with the fee, and Cincinnati over Miami near 77.0 cents, about 77 percent. A high-priced contract is the market saying it expects that outcome; it is not a promise.
Why we saved it
Robinhood's event contracts are left out of this pass until its published commission schedule is reconciled with Delta Arc's cost model, so the comparison stays apples to apples. Everything above is one buyer's cost at one instant, not a recommendation and not a current standing.
Here is the forward hook. Delta Arc saved this exact snapshot, and in a Monday follow-up on The Line we will score these prices against the final results, to see which venue's number read the games best. Delta Arc's Prediction Markets product keeps this board live across Kalshi and Polymarket in one place the rest of the week.
Sources: Delta Arc BM Dash; Kalshi's fee schedule; Polymarket's documentation; ESPN odds board.
Sources
Outside pages cited in this post, in order of first citation
- Kalshi's fee schedulekalshi.com
- Polymarket's documentationdocs.polymarket.com
- ESPN odds boardespn.com
This is the free read. Delta Arc Prediction Markets shows you every top market across Kalshi and Polymarket in one live view. Get early access.