Neither venue is cheaper across the college football title board. The cheapest posted price splits almost evenly: Kalshi holds the best number on six of the twelve tracked contracts, and Polymarket holds it on the other six. The correct answer to Kalshi vs Polymarket is not one venue, it is a team-by-team map of where each book is cheapest.
Which venue has the cheaper college football title prices?
Across the twelve national title contracts the model tracks, the best available price is a coin flip between the two exchanges. That split is what happens when two separate order books price the same event without a shared liquidity pool: quotes drift apart, and the low mark lands on different venues depending on where flow has concentrated.
For a trader, the practical takeaway is that a single account leaves value on the table. The best price on Ohio State lives on Kalshi; the best price on Notre Dame, the co-leader at the same fair value, lives on Polymarket. Capturing the cheapest entry on the full board requires watching both.
Where Kalshi holds the best price
Kalshi posts the low mark on six contracts: Ohio State at 12c, Oregon at 11c, Indiana at 9c, Georgia at 9c, LSU at 6c and Michigan at 2c. That group skews toward the top and middle of the board, where the two Big Ten and two SEC names cluster tightly in the model.
Michigan is the standout on this list. Its 2c price on Kalshi sits below the model's 4.1% fair value, the only place on the board where the best price trails fair value by that wide a margin in the trader's favor. Ohio State runs the other direction, with a 12c price against a 10.3% fair value.
Where Polymarket holds the best price
Polymarket posts the low mark on the remaining contracts: Notre Dame at 12c, Texas at 10c, Miami at 7c, Texas A&M at 4c and Alabama at 3c. Notre Dame is the headline, sharing the top of the board with Ohio State at a 10.3% fair value while pricing on the opposite venue.
Texas at 10c against an 8.8% fair value and Miami at 7c against a 5.9% fair value both carry a small premium to the model. The pattern shows how venue and value are separate questions: Polymarket being cheapest on a team does not make that team cheap relative to fair value.
Best price is not the same as fair value
The model's fair value is a de-vigged consensus: raw prices from Kalshi and Polymarket are combined and the overround is stripped out to leave a clean probability. Ohio State and Notre Dame top that board at 10.3% each, with Indiana at 9.7%, Oregon at 9.5%, Georgia at 9.1% and Texas at 8.8% packed just behind.
Comparing the best posted price to that fair value is where the read gets useful. Ohio State's 12c and Notre Dame's 12c both sit above their 10.3% fair value, a modest premium for the two co-favorites. Michigan's 2c against 4.1% is the clearest case on the board of a price trailing the model. Prices and the model can both be wrong; the gap is a signal to weigh, not a verdict.
So which venue should a trader use?
The honest answer is both. Kalshi is the cheaper venue on Ohio State, Oregon, Indiana, Georgia, LSU and Michigan; Polymarket is cheaper on Notre Dame, Texas, Miami, Texas A&M and Alabama. Committing to one book means overpaying on roughly half the board.
New accounts can offset some of that friction: Kalshi's FADE (trade $25, get up to $500) and Polymarket's TGSWC (deposit $20, get a $50 trading bonus) each lower the cost of running side-by-side coverage. The map above is a snapshot as of late July; order books move, and the cheapest venue on any given team can flip as flow shifts.
