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Kalshi Account Mode
Kalshi Account Mode (AccountMode = Kalshi) is a fully collateralized event-contract risk mode for trading Kalshi prediction markets through T4. Event contracts are binary: each contract settles at the Resolved Value (normally $1.00) or at $0. Instead of margining positions, the account reserves the worst-case settlement cost in cash at order time — cash is the only quantitative risk limit in this mode.
Key differences from the futures risk modes:
- No margin, ever. Margin, Day Margin, Full Margin and Margin Power are always 0 for Kalshi accounts.
- No Max Position and no Max Clip Size checks.
- Premium reserves capital for both buys and sells — a sell (short/NO) is collateralized at the settlement value minus the price.
- Working orders reserve immediately. Cash is consumed as soon as an exposure-increasing order starts working, not at fill time — including estimated fees.
- Trading is restricted to the Kalshi prediction-market exchanges (
KLSH_POp;DVKLSH_POpfor the demo listing). Orders for any other market are rejected pre-trade.
How capital is reserved
Order cost is computed from the contract's Resolved Value and the order price:
| Order | Cash reserved per contract |
|---|---|
| Buy (YES) at limit price P | P |
| Sell (NO) at limit price P | Resolved Value − P |
| Market order (either side) | Resolved Value (conservative) |
- Resolved Value is read from the parent firm contract's margin value for the contract, and defaults to 1.00 (the standard binary payout) when nothing is configured. Normally it is left unset.
- Reducing orders reserve nothing. A new order first offsets existing opposite exposure (net position not already consumed by other working orders); only the portion that increases exposure reserves premium. A position flip reserves only the increasing portion.
- Estimated fees and commissions are reserved alongside premium for new fill volume, so available cash reflects the full expected cash impact of the order up front. Accounts with Fees set to None reserve no fees.
- Order revisions are re-gated. A revision recomputes the reservation from the proposed price/volume and charges the difference — a price-only revise that increases the reservation consumes cash and can be rejected, while a volume decrease releases its reservation (reserved fees are not refunded).
Pre-trade risk gates
Evaluated in order; the first failure rejects the order. Orders that reduce or flatten exposure pass the blocked-state and active-time gates.
- Market gate — the market must belong to a Kalshi prediction-market exchange; anything else is rejected with “Market not supported in Kalshi risk mode”.
- Blocked states — an exposure-increasing order is rejected when the account status is Blocked or Loss Limit Exceeded (with pre-trade risk enabled), or when the firm or the parent account is blocked.
- Active time — outside the account's active-time window, exposure-increasing orders are rejected.
- Cash gate (the sole quantitative limit) — the order is accepted only when
AvailableCash + NewOrderCost >= 0, where NewOrderCost is the incremental premium plus estimated fees (both negative cash). The rejection message shows the values: “Insufficient cash for Kalshi order cost. AvailableCash:[…] NewOrderCost:[…] = Premium:[…] + Fees:[…]”. - Firm and parent-account cash pools (where applicable) — the same order cost must also be covered by the firm's available cash when firm-level pre-trade risk is enabled, and by the parent account's pool when the account belongs to a Related Accounts group. Firms with pre-trade risk disabled and accounts without a parent group skip the respective check.
Not applied in this mode: Max Position, Max Clip Size, and all margin checks.
Worked example
Account with a $500.00 balance, no positions, contracts settling at $1.00, and a fee of 2¢ per contract (reserved on increasing volume only):
| # | Action | Premium | Fees | Total reserved | Available cash after |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Buy 300 YES @ 40¢ (limit) | 0.40 × 300 = $120.00 | 300 × 0.02 = $6.00 | $126.00 | $374.00 |
| 2 | Sell 200 NO @ 65¢ (limit, different market) | (1.00 − 0.65) × 200 = $70.00 | 200 × 0.02 = $4.00 | $74.00 | $300.00 |
| 3 | Market buy 100 (third market) | 1.00 × 100 = $100.00 (conservative) | 100 × 0.02 = $2.00 | $102.00 | $198.00 |
| 4 | Buy 600 YES @ 40¢ (limit) | 0.40 × 600 = $240.00 | 600 × 0.02 = $12.00 | $252.00 > $198.00 | rejected — insufficient cash |
| 5 | Sell 300 @ 55¢ against the filled order #1 position | pure reducing order: $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $198.00 (unchanged) |
If order #1 fills and the market later settles at $0, the realized loss on that position is the $120.00 premium already paid plus the $6.00 in fees — exactly the cash reserved when the order was placed. That is the fully collateralized design.
Cash and equity formulas
| Value | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Available Cash | Balance + RPL + Premium − FeesAndCommissions | Realized P&L always counts, unrealized P&L never does. Premium is the (negative) reservation aggregate. The margin term is always 0. |
| Net Equity | Balance + RPL + UPL − FeesAndCommissions | Unrealized P&L counts (mark-to-market wealth); premium is a cash reservation, not an equity reduction. |
Unlike the futures option modes, Kalshi mode does not clamp unrealized P&L by premium — binary contracts carry real economic value on both sides until settlement, so UPL flows through unclamped in both directions.
Setup checklist
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Account Mode | Set to Kalshi (Admin Portal or Admin API). |
| Funding | The cash balance is the account's entire risk budget — fund it accordingly. |
| Fees | Configure account fees as usual; estimates are reserved on working orders. With Fees = None nothing is reserved and imported fees still reduce cash. |
| Markets | Only Kalshi prediction markets are tradeable in this mode; no per-market enablement is needed beyond the exchange being available to the firm. |
| Resolved Value override | Optional: set the parent firm contract margin value for a contract to override the default $1.00 payout. Leave unset for standard binary contracts. |
| Server | The account must be hosted on an Account Handler with access to the Kalshi exchange feed (arranged by CTS). |
| Active time / blocked flags | Honored as in other modes: they block exposure increases while allowing reducing and flattening orders. |
Notes
- Kalshi accounts use the standard end-of-day day change only (no alternate mid-day day change).
- All reservations and checks are converted to USD using the contract currency's conversion rate.
- Premium reservation math respects the market's volume scale, so fractional-contract listings reserve proportionally.
- Kalshi mode is not compatible with PropFirm Account Rules — prop-firm rules require the Auto Liq account mode.