Updated October 2026

Research

Questions this niche repeats constantly and has never measured. We run the study ourselves, publish the dataset it produced, and state what the sample cannot support in the same breath as what it can.

6,371data rows published

6original studies

Written and reviewed by Alexander Korsager, whose day job is Chief Gaming Officer at Legend, which owns Casino.org and Casino.guru. actfap carries no affiliate links, no ads, no paid placements and no operator relationships of its own. Last reviewed October 7, 2026. Every dataset ships under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Original research, by the numbers

6,371data rows published, every one free to reuse under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

6original studies, each published with its method and the sample's limits stated

Latest study, October 2026 · 11 min read

The longshot gap, and the spread that swallows it

The academic literature reports that prediction-market longshots are mispriced. We checked it on 12,755 settled Kalshi contracts, priced a day before they closed, and then did the part nobody had done: measured what reaching the mispricing would have cost at the same price, at the same moment, out of the same rows. In 10 price buckets out of 10, the cost was larger than the gap.

Full result set published: 20 rows, CSV, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

0 of 10

price buckets where the mispricing was bigger than what it cost to reach it

0: Gap bigger than the cost of reaching it
10: Gap smaller than the cost of reaching it

Every study, newest first

0 of 10price buckets where the mispricing was bigger than what it cost to reach it
Oct 2026 · 11 min read
The longshot gap, and the spread that swallows it The academic literature reports that prediction-market longshots are mispriced. We checked it on 12,755 settled Kalshi contracts, priced a day before they closed, and then did the part nobody had done: measured what reaching the mispricing would have cost at the same price, at the same moment, out of the same rows. In 10 price buckets out of 10, the cost was larger than the gap.
+1.35 pointsof the +1.38 points rise in Nevada's slot hold is the same machines getting more expensive, not players moving to worse ones
Sep 2026 · 12 min read
Hold is not the house edge Nevada publishes what its casinos actually keep, every month, and has since 2004. We read all 269 reports as one dataset. Two of the numbers in them look alike and measure different things, and almost everything people get wrong about this data starts there.
9.9cmedian two-way cost per dollar of payout across 78,119 quotable Kalshi markets
Sep 2026 · 9 min read
What a prediction market actually charges Prediction markets are sold on not charging vig. We snapshotted every quotable contract on Kalshi and priced the two-way cost the way a sportsbook's hold is priced. On 78,119 markets the median came to 9.9c per dollar of payout, against 4.8c at a standard sportsbook line. On the markets people actually trade, the answer flips.
4.2 timesmore per dollar staked at a title's lowest published setting than at its advertised one, at the median
Sep 2026 · 10 min read
The number on the box One of the two studios in our reference publishes five return settings for almost every game it ships. The other publishes one number. The numbers themselves look identical, and that is the problem.
4.80%how often the tightest spread middle landed over 26 seasons, against the 4.76% it has to clear to break even
Sep 2026 · 12 min read
The number the market hung How often an NFL middle actually landed, measured against the closing price that created it, across 6,719 regular-season games.
125 of 180scenarios in which the median attempt, not the unlucky one, lost the entire deposit
Sep 2026 · 11 min read
The mean is not the outcome What actually happens when you try to clear a casino bonus, 10.8 million simulated attempts at six wagering requirements published by US-regulated casinos.

The datasets, free to reuse

Every study's full result set, including the rows the write-up had no space for, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

20rows, CSV, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Dataset: The longshot gap, and the spread that swallows it
6,032rows, CSV, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Dataset: Hold is not the house edge
24rows, CSV, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Dataset: What a prediction market actually charges
13rows, CSV, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Dataset: The number on the box
102rows, CSV, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Dataset: The number the market hung
180rows, CSV, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0Dataset: The mean is not the outcome

The 13 calculators these findings bear on

See every tool

What a study here commits to

The data is published, not described: Every study ships its full result set as a CSV under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, including the rows the write-up had no space for. A figure we printed can be checked, and a figure we had no room for can be used.
No number on the page was typed: Every figure in a study is read from the run that produced it, and an automated test fails if the two ever disagree. That holds for the quantifiers as well as the percentages, so a sentence claiming something happened at every stake we tested is checked against the grid the same way a number is.
The limits sit in the piece, not in a footnote: Where a sample is small, a set of terms is unverified, or a modeling choice makes our own numbers the optimistic case, the methodology says so. A reader should not be the one who discovers it.
One named author, and the conflict stated: Written and reviewed by Alexander Korsager, whose day job is Chief Gaming Officer at Legend, which owns Casino.org and Casino.guru. actfap itself carries no affiliate links, no ads, no paid placements and no operator relationships, and that is the reason a study here can report a finding unflattering to a popular strategy, or to one of our own tools. The bonus-clearing study is the checkable instance: its finding is why the wagering calculator was rebuilt, and the study says so in its own body rather than leaving a reader to take that on trust. If a number turns out to be wrong, the corrections policy says what happens next.

Beyond the studies

A finding is a start. The site is where it gets used.

Every study above bears on a calculator or a guide that already exists. Here is where the numbers go next.

All tools
Free calculators, trainers and simulators, several of them rebuilt after what a study here found. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
Guides
The maths behind these studies, explained in order, from reading a price to deciding what to stake.
Slot RTP reference
What each studio actually publishes for return-to-player, sourced from their own game pages rather than a rounded headline figure.

21+, and only where gambling is legal where you are. Working the numbers out correctly does not remove a house edge or turn a losing bet into a winning one, and gambling can cause serious harm. The National Problem Gambling Helpline is free, confidential and open 24/7: call or text 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738), or chat at ncpgambling.org/chat. More on staying in control.