How we test & rank prediction market apps

How we test

No platform is added to our Top Apps list until our editor has tested it with her own money, on real markets, from sign-up to withdrawal. We do not rely on press releases, demo accounts or other sites' reviews.

Every platform we rank has been opened, funded (about $200 each), traded on and withdrawn from by our editor. Trade counts run from about 10 to 50 per platform. We re-check fees, payment methods and availability against each platform's own pages and date every check.

1. Sign up and verify. Catie opens a real account on the platform with her own details and goes through identity checks like any new user.
2. Deposit. She funds the account with her own money, about $200 per platform, using a normal payment method.
3. Trade. She places real trades, roughly 10 to 50 per platform depending on what it offers, across the kinds of markets the platform lists.
4. Withdraw. She takes money out and notes how the process works.
5. Read the rules. Fees, payment methods, age limits and state availability are taken from each platform's own help pages and terms, with the date we checked them. Legal status comes from court rulings and regulator sources.

We re-check the published facts when a platform changes its fees, offers or availability. The current order is on our Top Apps page.

Regulatory tracking

Prediction-market law moves fast, sometimes weekly. We treat regulator action the same way a financial newsroom treats an SEC filing: as a primary source that overrides anything an operator's PR team says.

Sources we monitor

• CFTC press releases, no-action letters, enforcement actions, and DCM order books.
• PACER court filings for any active Kalshi / Polymarket / KalshiEX litigation, including state AG suits.
• State gambling regulators and attorneys general, for cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits.
• Florida-specific channels: the Florida Gaming Control Commission, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Seminole Tribe's compact filings.

When the law is unsettled, which it often is, we say so plainly. We will never present a contested legal interpretation as a settled fact, and we will not editorialise away genuine risk to make an affiliate link more clickable.

Editorial independence

We earn affiliate commissions when readers sign up for prediction-market platforms via our outbound links. That revenue does not, and cannot, influence our rankings, scoring, or editorial language. Here's how we enforce it.

Journalists covering this beat can find pre-cleared quotes, brand assets, and contact details in our press kit.

FTC-compliant disclosure

We follow the FTC's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255). In practice that means:

• Affiliate relationships are disclosed above the fold on every page that contains commercial links, not buried in a footer.
• Bonus claims are quoted from the operator's own published terms. We do not invent dollar figures or rollover requirements to make an offer sound better.
• Language like "guaranteed," "risk-free," or "easy money" is never used. Trading involves real loss risk and we say so on every page that promotes a platform.
• We do not market to anyone under 21. Every sign-up CTA carries the 21+ trade-responsibly badge with a link to Responsible Trading.

Sourcing standards

Every factual claim on this site falls into one of three tiers. We tag each source by tier internally and surface citations in the Sources block at the bottom of every guide.

Numbers we do not invent

User counts, trading volumes, valuations, and bonus values are quoted from the operator's own materials or a Tier-1/2 source, never estimated. If a number cannot be verified, we either omit it or describe it qualitatively ("deepest US liquidity in 2025") instead of inventing a figure.

Scoring rubric

Every app is scored on a 0–5 scale across five weighted dimensions. The headline rating is the weighted average: no editor can override the rubric to push an app up or down without documenting the override on the review page.

Freshness policy

Prediction-market regulation, operator availability, and bonus terms change frequently. We publish a freshness commitment so readers know exactly how recent the page they are reading is.

• Top-Apps list & individual reviews: reviewed at minimum every 30 days; bonus terms re-verified each cycle.
• Florida + state legality pages: reviewed monthly; same-week updates when a regulator action, court ruling, or cease-and-desist is published.
• News articles: dated at publication and not silently rewritten: material updates are added as a "Update:" block at the top.
• Evergreen guides: reviewed quarterly; obviously dated content (e.g. discontinued products) triggers an immediate revision.

Every page carries a "Last updated" date. The freshness chip near our bylines turns from cyan to grey once a page is more than one month past its last review.

Corrections policy

We will get things wrong. When we do, we want the correction process to be visible, fast, and honest.

1. Acknowledge. Reader-reported errors are confirmed within 48 hours.
2. Fix the page. The inline error is corrected in place: we do not silently delete the original wording.
3. Add a correction note. A timestamped "Correction (month year):" block is added at the top of the page describing what changed and why.
4. Material errors are escalated. If a mistake materially misled readers, we say so on the home page and on social.

Read more about the team behind this work on our About page, see the full affiliate disclosure, or jump straight to the latest rankings.