Neither venue wins outright. For the 2026 national title board, Kalshi posts the best available price on 8 of the 12 contracts tracked, including every top-five favorite, while Polymarket owns the other four: Indiana, LSU, Alabama and USC. The short answer is that the cheapest venue depends on where a team sits on the board, not on the platform itself.
Which venue has the cheapest CFB prices?
The tally is 8 to 4 in Kalshi's favor across the tracked title market. Kalshi carries the best price on Texas (13c), Georgia (12c), Ohio State (12c), Notre Dame (12c), Miami (11c), Oregon (4c), Ole Miss (6c) and Florida (2c). Polymarket answers with Indiana (10c), LSU (5c), Alabama (1c) and USC (2c).
The pattern is clean: Kalshi concentrates its edge at the top and in the mid-tier favorites, while Polymarket surfaces the cheapest entry on select longshots and one upper-mid contract in Indiana. A trader building a full-board position would touch both venues rather than pick one.
Where does Kalshi win: the favorites
The top of the board is Kalshi territory. Texas leads at 13c, followed by a cluster of 12c contracts in Georgia, Ohio State and Notre Dame, then Miami at 11c. Every contender priced in double-digit cents lists cheapest on Kalshi.
That matters because favorites carry the most liquidity and the tightest spreads, so the venue that owns the best price at the top is doing the heavy lifting on entry cost for the contracts most traders actually size up.
Where Polymarket wins: the tail
Polymarket's edge shows up further down the board. It holds the best price on Indiana at 10c, LSU at 5c, and the two deep longshots, Alabama at 1c and USC at 2c. Those are thinner markets where a single venue's book can undercut the other.
For a trader hunting cheap optionality on lower-probability outcomes, Polymarket is the first stop on this board. The Polymarket promo (code TGSWC: deposit $20, get a $50 trading bonus) lowers the cost of testing those tail positions, though a bonus never changes whether the price beats fair.
Cheapest price is not the same as best value
Best price sets the entry cost; value is price against the model's fair value. Texas is cheapest on Kalshi at 13c, but that sits above its 12.3% fair value, so the top favorite is a slight fade even at the best venue. The same holds across the 12c cluster, where price sits at or just over fair.
The sharper reads are lower down. Florida is priced 2c on Kalshi against a 4.3% fair value, the widest discount to fair on the board. Oregon at 4c matches its 4.3% fair value almost exactly. So the venue that wins on raw price does not always deliver the value; on Florida, Kalshi delivers both.
How to read the venue split as a trader
The practical takeaway is to shop both books. Kalshi is the default for the favorites and mid-tier, Polymarket for the longshots and Indiana, and the consensus fair value is the check on whether any of those best prices is actually a discount.
On this board, the best price and the best value only line up cleanly at the bottom, where Florida trades under fair on Kalshi. At the top, the cheapest venue still leaves the favorites priced at or above the model. Prices and the model can both be wrong, and none of this is financial advice; the venue split simply shows where entry cost is lowest before value is judged.
