Every Monday, we pull the five most-traded questions on Kalshi and Polymarket that actually settle within the week, research them properly, and then make a prediction while including all our sources.
Each prediction gets a Geek Score from 0 to 100 depending on our level of certainty. Here’s the board for this week.
US Open Men’s Singles Winner
Kalshi · Resolves Sunday, Sep 13
Our pick: Ben Shelton
Price at midday ET Sep 9: Yes 37c – No 64c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 25
Shelton’s quarterfinal against Carlos Alcaraz ended after three in the morning, New York time, on a ten-point tiebreak in the fifth set. It was his first win over Alcaraz anywhere, and his contract moved 28 points on the day, from single digits to 37 cents.
The draw explains most of that. Jannik Sinner withdrew on August 21 with a knee injury. Novak Djokovic lost in the first round to Mariano Navone, ending a run of 78 straight first-round wins at majors. Alcaraz was the last man left with a Grand Slam on his résumé, and Shelton removed him.
What the price undercounts is the bill. Shelton plays Frances Tiafoe next, and Tiafoe arrives off his own five-setter, having come back from two sets down against Alex Michelsen. Whoever survives gets Alexander Zverev, who won the French Open this year and was Wimbledon runner-up. That is two more hard wins on tired legs for a player who has never reached a major final.
The risk: big servers hold up better on short rest than our model suggests, and Shelton has one of the biggest serves in the sport on the surface that rewards it most. If Tiafoe cracks first, the final becomes a coin flip and 25 looks low. The 23-year drought is also survivorship bias dressed up as a base rate. Droughts end.
US Open Women’s Singles Winner
Kalshi · Resolves Saturday, Sep 12
Our pick: Aryna Sabalenka
Price at midday ET Sep 9: Yes 35c – No 66c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 35
This is the thinnest call we have made in six editions. Our number is 35 against a price of 35, so there is no edge here. The market belongs on any honest list of what settles this week, but we did not find something the crowd missed.
Sabalenka is the two-time defending champion and has to win twice more: Jessica Pegula first, then Coco Gauff at 24 cents, Elena Rybakina at 20 cents, or whoever emerges from that half. Rybakina moved 13 points on Wednesday, the largest single move on the board. Run reasonable numbers through both rounds and you land in the mid-thirties, which is where the contract trades. The one thing pulling us low is repetition: Serena Williams took three straight US Opens from 2012 to 2014 and nobody else has managed it in forty years.
The risk: the case for NO is two near coin flips stacked together landing in the thirties. If Sabalenka’s serve holds the way it did against Linda Noskova, the semifinal stops being competitive and she walks into a final as the best hard-court player left. This is the weak link on the board.
US gas prices tomorrow
Kalshi · Resolves Thursday, Sep 10, 10:00 a.m. ET
Our pick: Above 4.2550
Price at midday ET Sep 9: Yes 63c – No 41c
Our call: YES, Geek Score 78
West Texas Intermediate has closed higher six sessions running, its longest streak since March, and Brent spent Tuesday testing $100 a barrel. The US struck three Iranian oil tankers on September 5 after Iran fired ballistic missiles at two Navy warships, and Saudi energy facilities were hit overnight on the seventh. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively shut since April.
Retail gasoline responds over the following week or two, and the pass-through is close to mechanical: every $10 on a barrel is roughly 25 cents at the pump. AAA put the national average at $4.15 on September 4, the highest September price on its record, and that was before this week’s move.
Supply points the same way. EIA data showed gasoline inventories fell 1.173 million barrels in the week ending August 28, and Midwest refiners are running above 103 percent of nameplate capacity, some deferring autumn maintenance to keep output up. There is no slack left to absorb a crude spike. A print that falls tomorrow, while crude rallies and inventories draw, would be the anomaly.
The risk: the contract asks about one overnight print, not a trend, and daily AAA moves can be a tenth of a cent either way when the survey catches a flat day. President Trump met refiners last week to push prices down. No measures were announced, but a headline before Thursday morning could stall the pass-through for a day, which is all this market needs.
BTC price on Friday at 5pm EDT
Kalshi · Resolves Friday, Sep 11, 5:00 p.m. ET
Our pick: $79,500 or above
Price at midday ET Sep 9: Yes 44c – No 57c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 33
Every rung on this ladder repriced up 14 to 16 points on Wednesday. That is a real rally, and also the fourth run at this zone since late August. On September 3 Bitcoin jumped more than five percent and traded briefly above $82,000, enough for Kalshi to settle the $80,000 rung of its September high ladder. It gave the move back within days.
Bitcoin sat in the low $63,000s in mid-August and is roughly 49 percent below the all-time high of $126,080 set in October 2025. The pattern all year has been rallies that fail rather than break out.
Then there is Friday. August CPI lands at 8:30 that morning, eight and a half hours before this contract settles, and it is the last inflation reading before a Fed meeting where traders price a 25 basis point hike at 54 percent. The Cleveland Fed’s nowcast has August headline inflation at 3.38 percent. A print in that neighbourhood keeps the hike live, and that is not what a risk asset 49 percent off its high wants to hear.
The risk: this is close to a two-day random walk and we know it. Spot sits a shade above the strike, so the honest starting point is a coin flip and our 33 is a directional overlay. If CPI comes in soft, the hike gets priced out fast and this settles well above $79,500.
EURUSD price on Sep 11 at 5:00 PM EDT
Kalshi · Resolves Friday, Sep 11, 5:00 p.m. ET
Our pick: Above 1.167
Price at midday ET Sep 9: Yes 36c – No 77c
Our call: NO, Geek Score 25
Spot is near 1.1650, so this leg needs the euro to gain about twenty pips and hold them through the biggest US data release of the month. Everything between now and the close pushes the other way.
Start with rates. Friday’s CPI is the last print the Fed sees before it meets on September 16, and Kalshi has a 25 basis point hike at 54 percent. The US ten-year yield is near a two-decade high. A currency pair is a rate differential with a chart attached, and that differential is moving in the dollar’s favour.
Then the geopolitics. Middle East escalation sends money into dollars, and Europe imports far more of the oil now near $100 than the United States does. The same barrel is inflationary for both and a terms-of-trade hit for one. Wednesday’s move showed the shape of it: the 1.163 and 1.165 rungs each jumped about 30 points while 1.167 managed seven.
The risk: this is the thinnest order book on the board at around $20,000 of volume, so the price is a weaker signal than the tennis or gasoline markets, and two large orders can move it a long way. A soft CPI reverses the argument in a single morning, and 1.167 is twenty pips away.
The board
| # | Market | Platform | Resolves | Our pick | Our call | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US Open Men’s Singles Winner | Kalshi | Sun, Sep 13 | Ben Shelton | NO | 25 |
| 2 | US Open Women’s Singles Winner | Kalshi | Sat, Sep 12 | Aryna Sabalenka | NO | 35 |
| 3 | US gas prices tomorrow | Kalshi | Thu, Sep 10 | Above 4.2550 | YES | 78 |
| 4 | BTC price on Friday at 5pm EDT | Kalshi | Fri, Sep 11 | $79,500 or above | NO | 33 |
| 5 | EURUSD price on Sep 11 at 5:00 PM EDT | Kalshi | Fri, Sep 11 | Above 1.167 | NO | 25 |
All prices as of midday ET Sep 9. Markets move, and some contracts reset their base intraday, so check the live price before trading.
We are furthest from the crowd on gasoline, 15 points above the market on the one contract where the pass-through from crude is close to arithmetic. We are closest on the women’s US Open, level with the price, and we said so rather than inventing a gap. Average distance across the five is under 10 points, low by our standards, and three of the calls hang on the same Iran and oil shock working through pump prices, the dollar, and Friday’s CPI. If that shock breaks the other way, this board will not miss one call. It will miss three.
Prediction markets carry real risk of loss. Nothing here is financial advice; it’s our read on the evidence. Trade responsibly, and if it stops being fun, the National Council on Problem Gambling is at 1-800-GAMBLER.
