It may be time to retire the old adage “nothing matters but the final score.” Wednesday’s NBA Eastern Conference Finals Game 1 comeback thriller between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks highlighted some key differences between in-game betting at sportsbooks versus prediction market platforms like Kalshi.
While sportsbooks pulled the live moneyline off the board late in the game, Kalshi continued to offer a marketplace for trading the game outcome. A number of Kalshi sports traders were able to get 99-1 odds on the Indiana Pacers to win the game when they were down by 14 points with three minutes left in regulation. That means a $10 bet on Indiana ended up returning $1,000 for a profit of $990.
The in-game experience continues to prove wildly popular at Kalshi since the event contract exchange added the equivalent of single-game moneyline markets for the NBA, MLB, and NHL back in April. Kalshi has attracted $210 million in trading volume on the NBA Playoffs so far, with roughly $100 million of that coming during gameplay, a company representative told Prediction News.
“The NBA playoffs have been historically exciting this year, and that’s led to some incredible trading environments that users are loving,” said a Kalshi representative.
To be clear, sportsbook users weren’t completely locked out on sites like DraftKings and FanDuel—while moneylines may have been pulled temporarily, bettors still had access to live spreads, totals, and prop markets, which are not currently available on Kalshi but are offerings the platform could eventually launch to further compete with sportsbooks.
While we all know any 99-1 longshot is priced that way for a reason (it’s an extremely unlikely outcome), the broader takeaway isn’t that one model is clearly better, but that prediction markets like Kalshi offer an alternative structure that sometimes allows for opportunities when traditional books tighten access. That was especially notable during a game like this.
Kalshi trading continued when sports bettors were locked out
Final Score: Pacers 138, New York Knicks 135. But that doesn’t tell the incredible story of the Pacers’ improbable comeback.
The Knicks led by 14 points with three minutes to go in regulation, a situation most NBA spectators (and bettors) assume game over. For those betting the game live at traditional sportsbooks, this is the point where moneylines tend to disappear. Because the game is so uneven at that point, sportsbooks simply close off further moneyline bets.
Kalshi, on the other hand, as a peer-to-peer event contract exchange, can keep markets like these open, as long as there are market participants willing to trade on both sides.
In the case of Game 1, while some took a flyer in buying $0.01 “Yes” contracts on the Pacers, other traders were willing to purchase “No” contracts for an all-but-guaranteed profit of one cent per contract. Clearly, this didn’t work out well for the No traders, but each one-cent contract paid out $1 for payout odds of 99-1.
Inside the comeback
While some live sports bettors were sidelined from making a bold moneyline call with the Pacers on the ropes, some Kalshi traders scooped up one-cent contracts backing an unlikely comeback. Then Aaron Nesmith did his thing.
Nesmith caught fire and went on an impressive run of three-pointers, scoring six of them and 20 total points in the final five minutes of regulation. Indiana was still down by nine with 59 seconds to go. Three threes by Nesmith in consecutive possessions (and one Knicks bucket) had the Pacers down by two with 22 seconds left.
With the help of a made free throw by Nesmith and two missed Knicks free throws, Indiana got the last possession, down two. Point guard Tyrese Haliburton drove the lane, nearly losing his dribble, before hustling back to the three-point line and shooting a jumper that bounced high off the rim in dramatic fashion before dropping straight into the bucket.
The Pacers’ odds jumped to around 42% as they went to overtime, and they remained an underdog as odds at Kalshi fluctuated with each back-and-forth possession. Indiana was finally favored for the first time in the game, though only slightly, when they went up by one with 26 seconds left. Those odds continued to climb quickly with a Knicks turnover, an Obi Toppin slam with 15 seconds left, and two missed three-shot attempts by the Knicks in the final seconds to secure the Pacers win.
More options for in-game bettors
For traders at Kalshi, the market chart helps tell the unbelievable story of a 1% underdog to winner across eight minutes of exhilarating basketball.
It also shows the betting story (shaded gray graph at the bottom) of increasing trading volume in the final minutes of regulation and throughout OT. These are game views you won’t currently find on sportsbook apps.
While the Kalshi in-game sports markets have plenty of room for improvement, they are also providing a viable alternative for sports bettors and traders looking to easily move in and out of moneyline positions up until the final buzzer sounds.
Game 2 between the Pacers and Knicks is already attracting significant action at Kalshi, as traders hope for another exciting game and another potentially volatile trading market.
