Comparing Event Finality Across Polymarket and Kalshi
Summary
This study explains why event contract resolution cannot be compared across Polymarket and Kalshi by matching labels such as “resolved” or “finalized.” It maps each venue’s process to functional stages, including adjudication or determination, public endpoint recording, payout availability, and redemption. It then proposes a comparison certificate that checks whether payoff meaning, endpoint function, calendar coverage, censoring, evidence quality, and dependence units align before estimating a shared duration.
The document reports venue-specific record counts and paired determination-to-endpoint observations, while emphasizing that these are native results rather than cross-venue estimates. It distinguishes exact paired, interval-qualified paired, and standardized unpaired comparisons. Limits include sparse lifecycle evidence for some intermediate changes, uncertainty about historical multi-market timer rules, and the fact that public finalization does not reveal member cash. Cross-venue estimates remain premature pending comparable decision clocks and event definitions.
Key ideas
- Event labels alone do not establish that two venues measure the same finality endpoint.
- A valid duration comparison requires aligned payoff semantics, endpoint roles, calendars, censoring, evidence grades, and dependence units.
- Exact, interval-qualified, and standardized unpaired comparisons represent distinct estimands.
- Public endpoint completeness does not guarantee visibility into intermediate revisions or member cash.
- Cross-venue numerical comparison requires comparable decision clocks and a semantic and calendar registry.
Tags
Full text
# Two Models of Event Finality: Functional Alignment, Contestability, and Empirical Comparability on Polymarket and Kalshi # Two Models of Event Finality: Functional Alignment, Contestability, and Empirical Comparability on Polymarket and Kalshi Event contracts reach economic finality through different institutional paths. Polymarket distinguishes oracle adjudication, adapter consumption, Conditional Tokens payout recording, technical redeemability, and optional holder redemption. Kalshi distinguishes venue determination, public finalization, lifecycle messages, and exact REST settlement fields. Resolved, settled, and finalized do not themselves define comparable endpoints. We define a mechanism-aware comparison certificate using functional roles rather than common labels. A scalar cross-venue duration is admissible only when payoff semantics, endpoint functions, calendar support, censoring, observation grades, and dependence units are jointly aligned. We separate exact paired, interval-qualified paired, and standardized unpaired estimands. Polymarket evidence contains 108,638 exact-linked conditions, 99,283 protocol payout records, 92,158 observed redemptions of any amount, and 91,817 observed positive-payout redemptions. Kalshi evidence contains 152,694 ordinary markets reconstructed as at risk at the enrollment boundary and 7,611,594 exact MVE market objects. Exact public endpoints cover 71,657 ordinary markets and 7,357,576 MVE objects. Exact determination-to-endpoint pairs total 70,979 for ordinary markets and 126,806 for MVE. These are Kalshi-native finality results, not Polymarket-Kalshi estimates. REST endpoint completeness can be high when exact lifecycle paths are sparse, and transport gaps can preserve two exact clocks while preventing claims about intermediate revisions. Current MVE timer fields do not identify historical version-consistent timer rules, and public finalization does not identify member cash. Cross-venue numerical comparison remains blocked until Paper 7.3 supplies blind first/stable decidability clocks and a semantic/calendar registry establishes genuinely comparable events and endpoints.
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