Roosevelt Institute says ordinary Kalshi users have lost $500 million
The Roosevelt Institute published a blog post arguing that ordinary Kalshi users have lost $500 million since the platform's launch. The piece challenges the industry's claim that prediction markets outperform traditional gambling by matching users against each other instead of a house. A separate July 6, 2026 Hacker News post attacked the expansion of prediction markets under the headline 'Kalshi Infects the News,' calling the current era of gambling on 'literally everything everywhere' a 'cancer on society.'
The $500 million loss figure gives state attorneys general and anti-gambling legislators a concrete rallying point against prediction markets. Kalshi's defense rests on the claim that its peer-to-peer model protects users from house-edge exploitation; the Roosevelt Institute counter directly undermines that narrative ahead of pending state fights in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Kentucky.
If policymakers accept that retail users are hemorrhaging money regardless of market structure, the regulatory argument shifts from preemption to public protection. Media outlets already face scrutiny over Kalshi coverage; this new accusation of systemic user harm makes favorable treatment harder to justify. Kalshi must now produce transparency on user profitability or cede the moral high ground to critics pushing outright bans.