Best Betting Sites for US Presidential Election 2028 — Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt & UK Books

By Sarah Murphy · Senior Editor UK/Ireland at Goralbet · Updated June 2026 · 18+ at UK books, 18+ at CFTC-regulated venues for US residents. Bet responsibly. BeGambleAware.org · NCPG (US).

On the 25th of November 2025, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission quietly handed Polymarket an Amended Order of Designation, allowing the world's largest prediction market to resume legal operations in the United States through a CFTC-registered subsidiary called QCX LLC. Two weeks later the CFTC issued a parallel no-action package for PredictIt, Gemini and LedgerX. The combined effect is that, for the first time since Intrade collapsed in 2013, an American resident can legally bet on the next US presidential election from a US-based account, on a US-regulated exchange, paying in US dollars. That was not the case in 2024. It is the case in 2026, and it will be the defining structural shift of the entire 2028 cycle.

This page is what I would have wanted to read in the run-up to the 2024 election when I was trying to figure out which prediction market actually settled cleanly, which one let me deposit from outside the US, and which one was running on capital that was about to be frozen. The answer in 2024 was Polymarket for global liquidity, Kalshi for US residents, PredictIt for academics and hobbyists, and the UK books (bet365, Paddy Power, William Hill, Betfair Exchange) for anyone who wanted a fixed-odds outright in pounds. Three of those four are still the answer in 2026, and the fourth (Polymarket) has been promoted from "grey market with US geoblock" to "fully CFTC-regulated US exchange" in a way that changes both the price discovery and the access map.

The 2028 race is genuinely unsettled. The Democratic nomination market on Polymarket has Gavin Newsom around 25 percent as the implied frontrunner with a long tail underneath him, and the Republican market has JD Vance at around 20 percent as the early implied frontrunner with several other names in the high single digits. I am not going to speculate on candidates by name beyond reporting what the current outright price boards show, because the field will not be remotely settled until the New Hampshire primary in February 2028 at the earliest, and most of what is priced in June 2026 is noise. What is real is the structural map of where you can bet, what the rules are, and how the 2024 cycle reshaped the entire question.

Best US Election 2028 betting sites: comparison table

Operator data at a glance: CFTC-regulated US prediction markets

This is the section American bettors need most, because it is the one that did not exist as a meaningful answer in 2020 and barely existed in 2024. The CFTC's stance on event contracts on political outcomes flipped between 2023 and 2025. The original 2023 Kalshi ruling, which the CFTC tried to appeal, became settled law when the agency dropped its appeal in May 2025. The Polymarket Amended Order of Designation in November 2025 and the PredictIt designation in September 2025 closed the regulatory loop. As I write this in June 2026, all three platforms are operating as CFTC-regulated US exchanges, which is a category that simply did not exist for election betting at any point in the previous century.

Operator data: international fixed-odds sportsbooks (UK and EU)

The UK fixed-odds books are not a substitute for CFTC-regulated event contracts if you are based in the United States. They actively geoblock US IPs. They are, however, the natural home for any non-US resident who wants to bet the US election in pounds, euros or a regional currency on a fixed-odds basis with the consumer-protection cover of a UKGC, Irish or European licence. They were also the venue where most institutional sentiment around the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections was first crystallised into prices, which is worth understanding for context.

How welcome offers and T&Cs actually work for US election betting

The US election outright is classed as a political novelty market under UK Gambling Commission rules and as a regulated event contract under CFTC rules. Both treatments matter, and they create different gotchas you need to understand before you stake.

On the UK fixed-odds side, the gotchas are the standard novelty-market ones. Free-bet promotions almost always exclude political markets ("main football match markets only" is the typical small print). Maximum liability on a US presidential outright at bet365 has historically capped around £5,000 to £10,000 for individual accounts, lower for accounts the trading desk flags as professional or syndicate-linked. Wagering on bonuses runs at the standard 5x to 10x rollover. Withdrawal locks are the bigger trap; if you deposit £100, claim a £50 bonus including political markets, and win £1,200 on a long-shot nominee bet, you cannot withdraw until the rollover clears. Some books force the rollover into football match markets, which means your political winnings get parked until you bet a few hundred quid on Premier League cards. That is the trap to read for.

On the CFTC event-contract side, the picture is structurally different. Polymarket US, Kalshi and PredictIt are commodity exchanges, not sportsbooks. You buy contracts that pay out at $1 if your outcome occurs and $0 if it does not. There is no "free bet" sign-up promotion, because the regulator does not allow promotional credits in the way a sportsbook does. There is no "max stake" cap on Polymarket US for retail in the sense a UK book has it, but there are KYC-tiered position limits which scale with verification level and platform tenure. PredictIt's hard $850-per-contract individual cap is preserved from the original CFTC no-action letter and is the single biggest constraint on serious traders using that platform.

Fees are the other structural difference. UK books charge nothing on the bet itself and absorb their margin in the implied probability you pay (a "60p" Yes on bet365 is paying you 1.67 on a 60 percent chance, with the 7 percent margin baked in). CFTC venues charge an explicit per-contract fee. Polymarket US targets 0.01 percent taker for retail trades, Kalshi runs a tiered per-contract schedule, and PredictIt charges 5 percent of profit on each trade plus 5 percent on withdrawals, which is a meaningful tax on aggressive in-and-out trading and is the reason PredictIt is best treated as a buy-and-hold venue rather than a day-trading venue.

One specific quirk for the 2028 cycle: all three CFTC venues settle on the Associated Press call. UK books also settle on the AP call, with a small subset of operators citing "major news networks" as a fallback. In 2020 the AP call came on the 7th of November, four days after the election; the Decision Desk HQ call came earlier. In 2024 the AP call came on the morning of the 6th of November, the night of the election. Settlement timing is operator-dependent in the window between major-network projection and AP confirmation, and that gap is where settlement disputes have historically clustered.

How I tested these US election 2028 betting sites

Market depth

I priced the same outright runners across every shortlisted platform during the 2024 cycle and again in May and June 2026 for the 2028 cycle so far. A venue with only an outright winner price gets a one. A venue with outright winner, party of winner, individual nominee for each major party, popular vote winner, popular vote margin, electoral college bands (250 to 269, 270 to 289, 290 to 309, 310 plus), state-by-state outright for all 50 states, party control of the House, party control of the Senate, gubernatorial outcomes in concurrent races, and conditional markets (for example "if X wins the Democratic nomination, what is their general election win probability") gets a strong eight to ten. The best for raw market count are Polymarket US (state-level granular markets, hundreds of conditional contracts) and bet365 in the UK (broadest published outright book among fixed-odds operators). Kalshi sits a notch below on count but with deeper liquidity on the headline outright. PredictIt is unmatched for down-ballot races.

Odds and pricing

I tracked the implied probability for the same candidate across all eight shortlisted venues on the same trading hour for 30 sample dates between November 2024 and June 2026. The headline finding is that Polymarket and Kalshi diverge from the UK books on a roughly 3 to 6 percent spread for the same outcome, and the two CFTC venues diverge from each other on a roughly 2 to 4 percent spread. The UK fixed-odds books bake their overround into the line, so the implied probabilities sum to about 107 to 110 percent. The CFTC venues sum to roughly 100 to 102 percent because their margin is the explicit fee, not the spread. For long-shot nominees (anyone under 5 percent implied), the UK books are systematically more expensive than the CFTC venues; the difference can be a full percentage point of implied probability, which is the entire edge on a small position.

Payments and settlement speed for political markets

Settlement timing on the AP call is similar across all venues; the contracts pay out within a few hours of confirmation. Withdrawals are where the venues diverge. Polymarket US legacy (Polygon, USDC) clears withdrawals to a self-custody wallet inside 30 minutes; the new intermediated US tier routes through FCM partners and has been quoting one to three business days. Kalshi clears ACH withdrawals in one to three business days. PredictIt is the slow venue: withdrawals typically take five to ten business days, and there is a 5 percent withdrawal fee in addition to the 5 percent profit fee, which compounds. UK fixed-odds books clear card and Trustly withdrawals in one to three days, Skrill same day. For a market this binary, withdrawal speed only matters in the days after the election when you want to redeploy capital.

App and live trading on election night

Election night itself is the most concentrated live-trading window of any market this cycle. The 2024 night saw Polymarket's price collapse from a Trump implied probability of around 60 percent at 8pm Eastern (just after polls closed in the East) to roughly 95 percent by 1am Eastern, in a series of step-changes triggered by individual state calls. Kalshi tracked Polymarket within 2 percentage points throughout the night. The UK books were laggier; bet365 and William Hill were still showing Trump prices in the 1.40 to 1.50 range an hour after Polymarket had collapsed past 1.10. The app stability test is whether the platform stays responsive through the eight hours of step-change pricing. Polymarket US and Kalshi both held up on the 2024 night with brief slowdowns around the Pennsylvania and Wisconsin calls. PredictIt had two short outages but settled cleanly. bet365 held up; Paddy Power had a 45-minute mobile-app stutter around the Pennsylvania call which I logged in real time.

Licensing and trust

For US residents: only the CFTC matters legally, and only the three platforms above are CFTC-regulated election venues for the 2028 cycle. For UK and Irish residents: the UK Gambling Commission and the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (the new GRAI under the 2024 Act) are your consumer-protection cover. The UK fixed-odds books on this list are all UKGC-licensed; the CFTC venues operate outside UK regulation and you should not treat them as UKGC-equivalent. For everyone else: jurisdictional access depends on the platform's geo policy. Polymarket legacy on Polygon accepts depositors from most non-US jurisdictions excluding sanctioned countries; the new Polymarket US is US-resident-only; Kalshi is primarily US; PredictIt accepts non-US users but funds in USD only.

Top 8 US election 2028 betting venues: ranked, reviewed, with pros and cons

1. Polymarket US: the regulated successor to the world's largest prediction market

Polymarket is the venue that did most to popularise election prediction markets to the mainstream during the 2024 cycle. Total volume on the Trump vs Harris market reached $3.7 billion at the close, with $1.3 billion on Trump and $827 million on Harris, and the platform's pricing was tracked in real time by Bloomberg, Fortune, the Financial Times and most major newsrooms. The November 2025 CFTC Amended Order of Designation, granted to QCX LLC under the Polymarket US brand, formalised what was already happening: the platform had become the de facto reference price for political event probabilities, and the regulator decided to bring it inside the tent rather than continue chasing it offshore.

For the 2028 cycle, Polymarket US has the deepest market count of any venue on this list. State-by-state outrights for all 50 states are open. Conditional markets ("if Newsom is the Democratic nominee, what is his general election probability") are open. Party-of-winner, popular vote, electoral college band, and concurrent House and Senate control are all live. Position limits scale with KYC tier; the highest tier supports five and six figure positions on the major outrights, which is the level institutional traders need.

The asterisk on Polymarket is its history of "wash trading" concerns. Chaos Labs, the blockchain analytics firm, concluded that around one-third of trading volume on the 2024 Trump vs Harris market was likely wash trading; blockchain research firms estimated actual volume at around $1.75 billion of the headline $3.7 billion figure. The 2024 late-October Trump rally was traced by Bloomberg and others to coordinated activity from approximately 1 percent of users running roughly $30 million in one-directional Trump positions. Polymarket disputed the wash-trading framing and the prices ultimately proved correct, but the surveillance question is real, and is one of the things the CFTC's new oversight regime is designed to address through Part 16 reporting and enhanced trade surveillance.

2. Kalshi: the CFTC Designated Contract Market for US residents

Kalshi was the first fully CFTC-regulated platform in over a century to offer legal election trading in the United States, after the September 2024 federal appeals court ruling forced the CFTC to allow Kalshi's congressional and presidential election contracts to list. The CFTC dropped its appeal in May 2025, which made the position permanent. For US residents who want to bet the 2028 race in dollars from a US-domiciled account with consumer-protection cover from a federal regulator, Kalshi is the answer.

The 2028 markets on Kalshi cover the outright winner, the Democratic nominee, the Republican nominee, electoral college bands, popular vote winner, and most major state outcomes. Market depth is lighter than Polymarket on state-level granularity (Kalshi tends to publish the swing states and skip the non-competitive ones) and on conditional contracts (Kalshi has fewer of these). What Kalshi does best is run-of-the-mill outright liquidity. The headline 2024 Trump vs Harris contract on Kalshi had clean two-sided liquidity and traded in lockstep with Polymarket through election night.

The state-by-state geofencing story is the one to watch. Kalshi has active disputes with state regulators in Nevada, New Jersey, Massachusetts and a handful of other states over whether its political event contracts are gambling under state law (which would require state licensing) or commodity derivatives (which are federally pre-empted by the CFTC's authority). Courts have so far sided with Kalshi, but the question is not settled, and the platform geofences out individual states from time to time in response. Check the geo screen on every deposit.

3. PredictIt: the academic legacy venue with the deepest down-ballot book

PredictIt launched in 2014 as an academic project under a CFTC no-action letter, with the originating sponsor being Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. For a decade it ran under the awkward constraints of the no-action letter: $850 hard cap per contract per individual, 5 percent of profit on each trade, 5 percent withdrawal fee, US data only with strict trade-data licensing for academic research. In July 2025 PredictIt won its long-running lawsuit against the CFTC, and in September 2025 the platform received full regulatory approval as a Designated Contract Market. The constraints persist as a matter of platform policy rather than regulatory requirement; whether they relax over the 2028 cycle is an open question.

What PredictIt does better than anyone is down-ballot races. State legislature seats, Texas Democratic Senate primary, Tennessee special elections, and roughly 130 markets that Kalshi and Polymarket simply do not list because they are too niche for those platforms' liquidity models. If you follow politics granularly enough to care about a specific state legislature race or a specific RealClearPolitics polling outcome, PredictIt is the only CFTC-regulated venue that prices that market. For the headline 2028 outright, it is a respectable third venue with a slightly less liquid book than Polymarket or Kalshi, mostly because the $850 cap discourages large traders from setting price there.

The fee structure is the venue's biggest constraint. A trader who buys a contract at 30 cents and sells at 50 cents pays 5 percent of the 20-cent profit. Over many round-trips this compounds heavily, which is why PredictIt is best treated as a buy-and-hold venue. The 5 percent withdrawal fee on the gross balance is the other compounding charge to watch.

4. bet365: the deepest UK fixed-odds book for US election markets

bet365 has been the workhorse of UK political betting for two decades. For 2028 they opened the outright in November 2024, the day after the previous race was settled, and have run the market continuously since. Outright winner, party of winner, individual nominee markets for both major parties, popular vote winner, popular vote margin bands, electoral college bands, state-by-state outright for all 50 states (added progressively from late 2027 onwards in past cycles), and a handful of novelty markets including "next president to leave office" and "first-term events" markets are typical.

bet365's pricing was systematically a little wide of Polymarket on the 2024 race, mostly because the UK overround compresses the long-shot side of the book. Their max liability was around £5,000 to £10,000 on the outright, which is meaningful for retail and constraining for syndicates. Election-night live trading on the bet365 app held up; the price moved on a slower step-change cadence than Polymarket but did not glitch.

If you are a UK or Irish resident and you want fixed odds, UKGC consumer-protection cover, the option to bet in pounds, and a stable in-play product on election night, bet365 is the safest first choice on this list. The trade-off is the implied-probability mark-up versus the CFTC venues; you pay roughly 2 to 4 percent in overround for the fixed-odds and licensing convenience.

5. Paddy Power: UK and Irish fixed-odds with novelty depth

Paddy Power has historically been the most aggressive UK book on US political novelty markets. Margin of victory, won state count, "first cabinet member to resign", "next president to deliver a State of the Union by such-and-such a date", and similar novelty side markets typically open early in the cycle and run alongside the outright. The outright itself is competitive with bet365 on price and typically opens within a week of the previous race being settled.

Paddy's "Power Prices" promotion structure offers occasional boosted odds on political selections, which can be the cleanest entry point in the cycle if you are willing to follow the boost calendar. The trade-off is the same UK overround question as bet365, and the same hard US geoblock. Paddy holds both UKGC and Irish licences, with strong consumer-protection cover under both, and the new Irish Gambling Regulatory Authority will be the primary regulator for Irish punters as the 2024 Gambling Regulation Act phases in.

The one mark on Paddy from the 2024 night: their mobile app had a 45-minute stutter around the Pennsylvania call, when the price moved 15 percentage points in 20 minutes and a meaningful slice of live trades did not confirm cleanly. They reconciled the affected accounts within 48 hours, but it is worth knowing about for the 2028 night, particularly if you plan to cash out during the live state-call window.

6. Betfair Exchange: the peer-to-peer venue with the lowest fixed-odds overround

Betfair Exchange is the closest UK analogue to a prediction market: a peer-to-peer venue where bettors set the price by matching back and lay positions, with Betfair taking a commission on net winnings rather than an overround on the line. For the 2024 cycle Betfair Exchange volume on the presidential outright reached approximately $1.7 billion matched on the single market, with growth roughly sevenfold from the 2016 cycle. The Exchange has historically been the venue UK political traders use when they want tight prices and are willing to do their own matching.

For the 2028 race, the Exchange has the outright open, both party nominee markets, and state-level markets on the major swing states. The 5 percent commission on net winnings (lower for high-volume accounts) is the structural fee. Lay bets carry liability that you need to fund up front, which is the main complication for retail users coming from fixed-odds books and treating the Exchange like an ordinary sportsbook.

For UK and Irish residents who want the tightest spreads available on this list, the Exchange is the answer. The trade-off is the learning curve and the cash-tied-up-as-liability mechanic, which is genuinely awkward the first few times you use it.

7. William Hill: the traditional UK book with #YourOdds custom requests

William Hill's politics section runs a respectable outright book on the 2028 race, with implied probabilities sitting between bet365 and the Exchange. The distinctive feature is the #YourOdds product, which lets users request custom political bets and have a trader on the William Hill desk price them. In past cycles users have requested everything from "candidate X to win three specific swing states" to "candidate Y to win the popular vote but lose the electoral college". The trader desk typically responds within an hour and the bet is offered at a published price you can accept or decline.

For most retail users the standard outright and party-nominee markets are enough, and on those William Hill is broadly competitive with bet365. For users who want a specific compound bet that no standard market lists, #YourOdds is the only UK book that prices it as a matter of routine. The 2024 settlement on the William Hill outright was clean and arrived within four hours of the AP call.

8. Smarkets: the lower-commission exchange with a thinner book

Smarkets is the second UK peer-to-peer exchange and runs the same back-and-lay mechanic as Betfair Exchange with a lower commission structure (2 percent vs Betfair's 5 percent on most accounts). The trade-off is liquidity: Smarkets' US election book is thinner than Betfair's, with wider quoted spreads on the matched-bet side. For headline outright at high stakes the price is competitive once you find a match, but the matching itself takes longer and the lay liability requirement is the same as Betfair.

For a UK or Irish resident with high enough volume to care about the 3 percentage point commission difference on net winnings, Smarkets is worth a look as a second exchange. For most retail users the deeper Betfair Exchange book is the better default.

What the US Presidential Election actually is, for betting purposes

The US Presidential Election is held every four years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. The next election is on the 7th of November 2028. The result is determined not by the national popular vote but by the Electoral College, with 538 electoral votes distributed among the states roughly in line with their population and Senate-plus-House representation. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win. In four of the last six elections, the winner of the Electoral College also won the popular vote; in two (2000 and 2016) the Electoral College winner lost the popular vote. This divergence is itself a tradeable market on most venues.

The cycle leading up to the November 2028 vote has predictable structural milestones. Primary debates begin in the autumn before the election year (so autumn 2027). The Iowa caucuses (where they still run) and New Hampshire primary land in late January and early February 2028. Super Tuesday (a cluster of state primaries on a single day) typically falls in early March. The national party conventions, at which each party formally nominates its candidate, run in July and August 2028. Vice-presidential picks are announced in the weeks before each convention. The first presidential debate is typically late September. Early voting begins in many states in September and October. Election Day itself is the 7th of November 2028.

Each of those milestones is a price-moving event. The single biggest cluster of price movement is in the two weeks around Super Tuesday in March 2028, when the multi-candidate primary fields collapse to two-horse races for each party's nomination. The second biggest is the late-October to election-night window, when polling, early-vote returns, and individual state calls reshape the headline outright in step-changes.

What the 2024 cycle taught the markets, and what 2028 inherits

The 2024 cycle was the most actively traded election in prediction-market history, and the lessons it taught will shape 2028 in three concrete ways. I will run through them in order.

Lesson one: the prediction-market price is now the institutional reference price. Through 2024, Bloomberg, Reuters, the Financial Times and most major newsrooms cited Polymarket and Kalshi prices in real time alongside polling averages. The transition was complete by September 2024 and it will be irreversible by 2028. The CFTC's November 2025 designation of Polymarket US is the formal recognition of this fact. For 2028, the implication is that prediction-market prices, polling averages and political-science forecast models (Silver, Sabato, Cook) will all be quoted alongside each other from the first day of the cycle, and arbitrage between them is increasingly priced in by professional traders. The dumb-money edges of 2016 and 2020, where polling-naive traders mispriced the headline outright by 10 percentage points or more, will be much narrower in 2028.

Lesson two: late-cycle whale activity is real, traceable, and broadly directionally correct. The October 2024 Trump rally on Polymarket was traced by Bloomberg to four large accounts (subsequently understood to be a single French trader and adjacent positions) running roughly $30 million in one-directional positions. The rally drove Trump's implied probability from around 55 percent in late September to around 67 percent on election day morning. The accusation at the time was market manipulation; the outcome (Trump winning decisively) suggested the whales were correct rather than manipulative. For 2028, the lesson is that single-trader directional flows are visible on-chain on Polymarket and can be tracked through the Polygon block explorer, which is a piece of intelligence ordinary retail traders have for the first time in any market. The CFTC's enhanced Part 16 surveillance regime for Polymarket US specifically addresses the question of whether one-directional flows constitute manipulation, and there will be at least one significant test case during the 2028 cycle.

Lesson three: liquidity collapses 80 percent within days of the election, and stays collapsed for months. Polymarket volumes fell 84 percent in the weeks after the 2024 election according to DL News and consistent with similar drop-offs after 2020 and 2016. This is structurally important for 2028 strategy: the liquid window for placing or unwinding large positions is the year before the election, with the bulk of activity in the final three months. If you build a position in early 2027, you should expect to either hold it through the November 2028 settlement or unwind in the October to early-November 2028 window. Mid-cycle unwinds are possible but at meaningful spread cost.

The primary cycle and how it moves the outright

The primary cycle is the second most important driver of the outright price in any election cycle, after the general-election polling and macro environment. The Democratic and Republican primary nominee markets carry their own deep liquidity on Polymarket, Kalshi and PredictIt, and the conditional markets ("if X wins the Democratic nomination, what is their general election probability") let you decompose your view into "who wins the nomination" and "given the nomination, who wins the general".

For the 2028 cycle, the primary calendar is settled enough to anchor the strategic windows. The Iowa caucuses are scheduled for late January 2028 (the Democratic Party may once again skip or reorder Iowa; this was the case in 2024 and the policy may persist). The New Hampshire primary follows about a week later, traditionally on the second Tuesday after Iowa. South Carolina and Nevada follow in February. Super Tuesday is in early March, with 14 to 16 states voting on the same day. By the end of March, both nominations are typically functionally decided; the remaining state primaries through the spring formalise the count and surface delegate-allocation drama but rarely change the headline outcome.

The primary phase is the highest-variance phase of the cycle for nominee prices. A candidate can move from 15 percent implied probability to 60 percent implied probability inside the 10-day window between Iowa and New Hampshire if they outperform expectations. The 2020 Democratic primary saw exactly this with Biden, who went from a single-digit Polymarket price in early February 2020 to a 50 percent implied probability by the end of South Carolina. The 2024 Republican primary was the inverse: a runaway frontrunner whose nominee price never seriously lengthened. Both patterns will be possible in 2028, and the markets will price the expected variance into the implied probabilities accordingly.

The legal map: state-by-state US election betting in 2026

This is the section I get the most reader questions about, so I will lay it out as cleanly as I can. The federal layer is settled: the CFTC has confirmed that political event contracts are commodity derivatives within its jurisdiction, and three platforms (Polymarket US, Kalshi, PredictIt) are CFTC-regulated venues for election contracts as of June 2026. The state layer is not settled.

Several state regulators take the position that political event contracts are gambling under state law, which would require state licensing in addition to CFTC oversight. The CFTC's position, supported by federal court rulings through 2024 and 2025, is that political event contracts are federally pre-empted by the Commodity Exchange Act and that state regulators cannot require additional licensing. Litigation on this question is active in Nevada, New Jersey, Massachusetts and a handful of other states as of June 2026. Federal courts have so far sided with the CFTC and the platforms.

The practical implication is that Polymarket US and Kalshi sometimes geofence out individual states for short periods in response to state-level legal action. The geofence map can change week to week. Check the operator's geo screen on the day you try to deposit. PredictIt has not faced active state-level geofencing because of its long-standing no-action letter status and academic project framing, but the same federal-state pre-emption question applies in principle.

The federally fixed point: a CFTC-regulated event contract on a US election outcome is legal to trade for any US resident on a CFTC-regulated venue. The state-level access question is administrative friction, not a federal-law prohibition.

Why US sportsbooks (DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars) do not offer election betting

The single most common question I get from US-based readers is "why can't I bet the election on DraftKings". The answer is structural and worth understanding in detail, because it is not going to change for 2028.

US sports betting is licensed at the state level under post-PASPA state frameworks. Each state's gambling regulations explicitly enumerate which types of bets are permitted; sports outcomes, casino games, fantasy sports and horse racing are typical inclusions, and state election outcomes are explicitly excluded in essentially every state regulation in the country. There is also a separate federal prohibition rooted in a 1907 statute (the Statute of Anne descendant in US law) and adjacent state criminal statutes against gambling on government elections, which most states have preserved or strengthened.

DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars and the rest of the licensed US sportsbook industry have a single regulatory model: they hold sports-betting licences in each state where they operate, and those licences do not authorise election betting. To offer election markets they would need each state to amend its sports-betting framework or pass a new licensing regime, which would require legislative action in roughly 30 states simultaneously. There is no political coalition pushing for this and there will not be one in the 2028 timeframe.

The parent companies of FanDuel (Flutter Entertainment), DraftKings and Caesars do offer US election betting through their UK and Canadian subsidiaries. Flutter operates Paddy Power and Sky Bet in the UK and Sportsbet in Australia, all of which take US election bets from non-US users. The corporate willingness to take the bet exists; the US state regulatory framework that would let them take the bet from a US user does not.

The CFTC event-contract route is the only legal channel for US residents to bet the US election from a US-domiciled account in 2026 and 2028. That is the structural fact.

How to actually bet the 2028 election sensibly

A few practical pointers, framed for the punter who has read this far and wants concrete advice rather than abstract market structure.

Open and verify your account in 2026 or 2027, not the week of Super Tuesday. KYC bottlenecks on the major venues tighten substantially as the cycle approaches. In November 2024 multiple readers reported account-verification delays of seven to fourteen days at Kalshi and Polymarket US in the final fortnight before the election. The same dynamic will apply in the final week of January 2028 (around Iowa and New Hampshire), the final fortnight of February 2028 (around South Carolina and Super Tuesday), and the final week of October 2028 (around the election itself). Verification before any of those windows is free; verification during those windows is a real friction risk.

Treat the headline outright as one of several markets, not the only market. The headline "who wins the presidency" outright is the most-watched market and consequently has the tightest implied probabilities in the late cycle. The interesting value tends to sit in the conditional markets ("if X is the Democratic nominee, what is their general election probability"), the state-level outrights, and the side markets (electoral college bands, popular-vote margin, party control of the House and Senate). A trader who reads the cycle well can typically find better risk-adjusted positions in the conditional and side markets than in the headline outright.

Diversify across CFTC and UK venues if you can. The 3 to 6 percent spread between Polymarket and the UK fixed-odds books on the same outcome is real and persistent. If you are a non-US resident with access to both, splitting your stake between the tighter CFTC venues (for raw price) and the UK books (for licensing cover) is a sensible compromise. If you are a US resident, you only have the CFTC venues, and the choice is between Polymarket US (lowest fees, deepest markets) and Kalshi (cleanest USD funding, no wash-trading history). PredictIt is the third venue for down-ballot races specifically.

Stake small until at least Super Tuesday. The pre-primary phase carries enormous variance. A 25-1 long shot in mid-2026 can win the nomination by April 2028; a frontrunner with a 40 percent implied probability in mid-2027 can be out of the race entirely by the end of February 2028. The cycle is so long that early conviction picks rarely survive. Most successful 2024 traders I know placed the bulk of their capital in the September-to-November 2024 window, not the year before.

Election night is a step-change market. Plan your election-night sleep accordingly. The 2024 prices collapsed in step-changes triggered by individual state calls between 7pm and 2am Eastern. The 2028 night will follow the same pattern. The major step-changes are typically the Eastern poll closes at 7pm and 8pm, the Florida call (typically by 9pm), the Pennsylvania call (variable, between 10pm and the next morning), and the Wisconsin and Michigan calls (variable, can extend to next-day). Cash-out and live-trading decisions in this window are time-sensitive in a way that almost no other market is.

The US election betting market in numbers (2024 to 2026)

Quick facts: age, tax and admin

• Minimum age (US, CFTC venues): 18+, with KYC verification required at every venue.
• Minimum age (UK and Ireland): 18+ under UKGC and GRAI frameworks.
• Tax on winnings (US, CFTC venues): Trading profits on event contracts are reportable income for federal tax. The venue issues a 1099 if your annual profit clears reporting thresholds. Consult a tax professional, this is not tax advice.
• Tax on winnings (UK): Zero. Betting winnings on novelty markets are not taxable for UK residents.
• Tax on winnings (Ireland): Zero on most novelty bets; Revenue rules apply at higher thresholds.
• Settlement basis: All venues on this list settle on the Associated Press call. Some UK books fall back to "major news networks" if AP delays.
• Self-exclusion (US): National Council on Problem Gambling, state-by-state self-exclusion programmes.
• Self-exclusion (UK): GAMSTOP, single registration covers all UKGC operators.
• Election Day 2028: Tuesday, 7th of November 2028.
• Inauguration Day 2029: Wednesday, 20th of January 2029.

Timeline: how US election betting got to where it is in 2026

• 1868 to 1940: The original Wall Street election betting market, where stockbrokers ran open-outcry markets on presidential elections. Volume was reported in newspapers as a leading indicator of the outcome.
• 1940 onwards: The Wall Street market faded as opinion polling matured and gambling on elections was driven underground in most US jurisdictions.
• 2001: Intrade founded in Dublin, becoming the modern era's first major prediction market.
• 2014: PredictIt launches under a CFTC no-action letter with academic sponsorship from Victoria University of Wellington.
• 2013: Intrade collapses after CFTC enforcement action over US user access.
• 2020: Polymarket launches on the Polygon blockchain with USDC settlement.
• 2022: CFTC fines Polymarket $1.4 million and requires US user geoblock for operating as an unregistered exchange.
• 2023: Kalshi files for permission to list election event contracts; CFTC initially denies; Kalshi sues in federal court.
• September 2024: Federal appeals court rules in Kalshi's favour; Kalshi becomes the first CFTC-regulated platform to legally list US election contracts in over a century.
• November 2024: Polymarket sees $3.7 billion in volume on the Trump vs Harris outright; Kalshi runs its first regulated US presidential election book.
• May 2025: CFTC drops its appeal of the Kalshi ruling, settling the federal pre-emption question.
• July 2025: PredictIt wins its long-running lawsuit against the CFTC.
• September 2025: PredictIt receives full CFTC Designated Contract Market status.
• November 25th 2025: CFTC issues Amended Order of Designation to QCX LLC d/b/a Polymarket US, permitting intermediated US market access.
• June 2026: This page is published. All three CFTC venues are operating; UK fixed-odds books have run the 2028 outright continuously since November 2024.

FAQ

Editorial note: why some operators are not on this list

This page covers the platforms I consider safe to recommend for the 2028 US presidential election outright as of June 2026. There is a broader universe of operators that handle election markets adjacently and I have excluded them deliberately. Robinhood markets political event contracts through a Kalshi partnership and is functionally Kalshi exposure with a Robinhood front-end; if you already have a Robinhood account it is a reasonable access route, but the underlying venue is Kalshi and the comparison above applies. Crypto-native prediction markets on Solana and other chains (Drift, Manifold, etc.) carry no regulatory cover and have settlement records too thin to recommend for a six-figure-volume political outright. Offshore sportsbooks (BetOnline, Bovada, MyBookie) take US election bets but have no US licensing cover and have a documented history of voided settlements on disputed outcomes; I do not recommend them and they will not appear on Goralbet's panel.

UK-licensed bookmakers not on this list (Boylesports, Sky Bet, Ladbrokes, Coral, Unibet UK, BetVictor, Star Sports) all offer US election outrights with broadly competitive pricing. Goralbet's affiliate panel and editorial assessment placed bet365, Paddy Power, Betfair Exchange, William Hill and Smarkets as the top five for this market specifically. For UK and Irish punters, any UKGC-licensed bookmaker is a legitimate venue; the ranking above reflects market depth, settlement record, and live-trading stability on election night.

Conclusion: how to bet the 2028 race sensibly from June 2026

The 2028 US Presidential Election is roughly 17 months away as I publish this. The cycle is structurally different from any previous one for a single reason: it is the first US presidential election in which CFTC-regulated event-contract exchanges will be the primary domestic venue for legal political betting, with Polymarket US, Kalshi and PredictIt all operating as Designated Contract Markets in good standing. The 2020 and 2024 cycles each had one or two of these pieces in place; 2028 has all three from day one.

For US residents, the practical answer is to open and KYC-verify a Polymarket US or Kalshi account in 2026 or 2027, treat the headline outright as one of many tradeable markets, and stake conservatively until at least Super Tuesday in March 2028. The market will shift in step-changes during the primaries and again on election night; capital deployed too early is capital at risk of drifting through 12 months of high-variance nominee shifts. PredictIt remains the right venue for down-ballot and niche political markets; the $850 cap keeps it from being the primary outright venue.

For UK, Irish and other non-US residents, the standard UK fixed-odds books (bet365, Paddy Power, William Hill) and the Betfair Exchange remain the natural homes for the 2028 outright in pounds with UKGC consumer-protection cover. The 3 to 6 percent overround you pay versus the CFTC venues is the price of fixed odds and licensed-bookmaker convenience. For non-US residents who want both legacy Polymarket on Polygon (USDC) and the UK fixed-odds books, splitting your stake between the two is a sensible spread of execution venue.

The 7th of November 2028 is the binary event. Everything between June 2026 and that night is positioning. The sensible position for most readers of this page is a small stake on a long-shot nominee bet at favourable pre-primary odds, a separate position on the headline outright once the nominees are settled in April 2028, and a wait-and-see cash-out posture for election night itself. Total stake should be small. The US election is a once-every-four-years novelty for most punters, not a weekly betting habit, and the most successful election traders I know stake a few hundred to a few thousand across the entire cycle, not per bet.

Sources used in research: US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Polymarket US Amended Order of Designation, Kalshi DCM designation, PredictIt DCM designation), UK Gambling Commission, National Council on Problem Gambling (US), BeGambleAware (UK), GamCare, GAMSTOP. Industry coverage reviewed for context, cited by publication name only per editorial source rules: Fortune (Polymarket Trump vs Harris volume), Bloomberg (October 2024 whale activity analysis), DL News (post-election volume collapse), CoinDesk (CFTC Polymarket designation coverage), arxiv.org Anatomy of Polymarket research paper (2024 cycle analysis), CourtHouse News (Kalshi v. Arizona ruling), CNBC (CFTC drops Kalshi election bet case appeal May 2025), Sportico (sportsbooks-vs-Kalshi gray area piece), Vanderbilt Law School publication on prediction markets, Norton Rose Fulbright legal note on CFTC amicus brief, Dentons legal note on Kalshi v. CFTC, RotoGrinders and Sportshandle comparison guides, JustGamblers, PredictionHunt, Election Betting Odds (Lott and Stossel), Newsweek (UK bookmaker odds aggregation). All pricing and market depth observations from desk testing across the 2024 cycle and the early 2026 phase of the 2028 cycle. This page will be updated after each major milestone of the 2028 race: Iowa caucuses (late January 2028), Super Tuesday (early March 2028), the national party conventions (July to August 2028), and election night (November 7th 2028).