How the prediction markets priced the 2025–26 College Football Playoff: Indiana won from 1%
Indiana went 16-0 and won the national title as a 1% preseason shot on Kalshi; Miami reached the final from about 1% in November; the preseason favourite, Texas, missed the playoff. We traced Kalshi’s 142-million-contract championship market from August to the final, game by game, and drew the lessons for this season’s College Football Playoff predictions.
In this article
The team that won last season's national championship was priced as a long shot for most of the year. When Kalshi's 2025–26 college football championship market opened for the season in August 2025, Indiana traded at about 1%. Five months later the Hoosiers finished 16-0, beating Miami 27-21 in the national championship game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens on 19 January 2026.
Their opponent had an even stranger path. Miami fell to about 1% in early November, sneaked into the 12-team field as the No. 10 seed, and won three playoff games before losing the final. Meanwhile the market's preseason favourite, Texas, did not make the playoff at all.
With the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2026 season out and the field set on 6 December, we went back through Kalshi's archive to see how last season's market behaved, and what it says about trusting this season's College Football Playoff predictions.
Key findings
Source: Kalshi market data: KXNCAAF-26, daily closes and volume; our analysis
- The champion came from nowhere. Indiana was priced at about 1% through mid-September and did not reach 10% until mid-October.
- The preseason board missed badly. Texas (16%), Ohio State (13%), Georgia (10%) and Alabama (10%) led in August. None reached the final, and Texas missed the playoff.
- The No. 10 seed reached the final. Miami was a 1% shot on Kalshi in early November and traded as low as 0.5% on 4 November, then won three playoff games.
- The playoff itself was decisive. Indiana's price went from 25% at the end of December to 44% after its quarter-final and 74% after its semi-final.
How the leading teams moved
Source: Kalshi market data: KXNCAAF-26, daily closes (ET). A team’s line ends at its elimination.
Show the dataHide the data
| Indiana | Miami | Ohio State | Georgia | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug | 1% | 2% | 13% | 10% |
| 15 Sep | 1% | 6% | 15% | 10% |
| 1 Oct | 4% | 9% | 18% | 8% |
| 15 Oct | 9% | 13% | 23% | 8% |
| 1 Nov | 16% | 1% | 32% | 9% |
| 15 Nov | 16% | 2% | 36% | 10% |
| 1 Dec | 15% | 1% | 38% | 12% |
| 7 Dec | 21% | 4% | 30% | 17% |
| 31 Dec | 25% | 18% | 0% | 25% |
| 2 Jan | 44% | 21% | – | 0% |
| 9 Jan | 74% | 27% | – | – |
| 18 Jan | 75% | 27% | – | – |
The chart shows three distinct phases.
August to October: the old order. The preseason favourites were the programmes that usually are: Texas, Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama and Oregon. Indiana, coming off its first playoff appearance the season before, was priced like an outsider. Miami was a little higher, at 2–6%, and climbed to 13% by mid-October.
November: Ohio State's market. By 1 November Ohio State was the clear favourite at 32%, and it peaked at about 38% on 1 December. Indiana held at around 15–16%. Miami collapsed to about 1% in early November, priced as a team that might not make the field at all.
December and January: the playoff decides. After conference championship weekend Indiana rose to 21% and Ohio State slipped to 30%. Then the playoff rearranged everything: Ohio State lost its quarter-final, Georgia lost its quarter-final, and the two teams that had been priced lowest at key moments of the season met in the final.
The playoff, game by game
| Round | Result |
|---|---|
| First round | No. 9 Alabama 34, No. 8 Oklahoma 24 |
| First round | No. 10 Miami 10, No. 7 Texas A&M 3 |
| First round | No. 6 Ole Miss 41, No. 11 Tulane 10 |
| First round | No. 5 Oregon 51, No. 12 James Madison 34 |
| Quarter-final (Cotton Bowl) | No. 10 Miami 24, No. 2 Ohio State 14 |
| Quarter-final (Rose Bowl) | No. 1 Indiana 38, No. 9 Alabama 3 |
| Quarter-final (Orange Bowl) | No. 5 Oregon 23, No. 4 Texas Tech 0 |
| Quarter-final (Sugar Bowl) | No. 6 Ole Miss 39, No. 3 Georgia 34 |
| Semi-final (Fiesta Bowl) | No. 10 Miami 31, No. 6 Ole Miss 27 |
| Semi-final (Peach Bowl) | No. 1 Indiana 56, No. 5 Oregon 22 |
| Final | No. 1 Indiana 27, No. 10 Miami 21 |
Seeds as shown by ESPN's playoff results. Sources: ESPN; NCAA.
Three of the four quarter-finals went against the higher seed. Only Indiana, the top seed, held serve, and it did so emphatically: its three playoff wins came by a combined score of 121 to 46.
Indiana: from 1% to champion
Source: Kalshi market data: KXNCAAF-26, daily closes
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Preseason | 1% |
| 1 Oct | 4% |
| 1 Nov | 16% |
| Field set | 21% |
| Before QF | 25% |
| After QF | 44% |
| After SF | 74% |
| Before final | 75% |
The interesting point is not that Indiana was underpriced in August. Every season some team outperforms its preseason price. It is how long the market took to believe. Indiana was unbeaten through October and November and still priced at 15–16%, below Ohio State, until conference championship weekend. Even as the top seed it was only 25% on the eve of the quarter-finals.
That caution was not unreasonable. A 12-team playoff means the top seed must win three games against strong opponents, and even a team that is a 70% favourite in each game wins all three only about a third of the time. The market's 25% was in that range. What changed the price was not a reassessment of Indiana's quality but the fact that, one by one, the games were won.
A trader who bought Indiana at 1 cent in August turned each contract into $1. One who waited until the field was set paid 21 cents and still nearly quintupled the stake. Even buying at 75 cents before the final returned a third.
Miami: the most-traded team
Miami was the most heavily traded team in the market by far: about 59 million contracts, against 34 million for Indiana and about 8 million for Georgia, the third most traded.
Its path through the bracket was the opposite of Indiana's. It went to Texas A&M in the first round and won 10-3, then beat No. 2 Ohio State 24-14 in the Cotton Bowl and Ole Miss 31-27 in the Fiesta Bowl. Its championship price rose from about 4% when the field was set to 18% after the Ohio State win and 27% before the final.
Holders of Miami at the November low of 0.5–1% were sitting on a contract worth 27 to 54 times their stake by the eve of the final, but only on paper: the contract settled at zero, and only those who sold before the final kept the gain.
What the market got right and wrong
Wrong in August. The preseason board was a list of traditional powers. Texas, the August favourite at 16%, missed the playoff; Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama all went out in the quarter-finals.
Wrong in November. Ohio State's 38% on 1 December was the highest any team reached before the playoff began. It did not win a playoff game.
Right about the shape of the field. The market correctly treated the playoff as wide open. No team was priced above 38% before the bracket was set, and the four semi-finalists included two teams priced below 10% in early November.
Right about Indiana in the end. Once Indiana started winning playoff games, the market moved quickly and decisively. Its 75% before the final was a strong, correct call, even if the final itself was close.
What it means for this season
On 8 November 2026, Kalshi's 2026–27 championship market makes Georgia the favourite at about 29%, ahead of Notre Dame at about 19% after its win over No. 1 Miami, with Alabama at about 11%, Texas at 10%, Miami at 9% and Indiana at 8%. The full board and the playoff picture: College Football Playoff odds.
Last season's market suggests three cautions:
- A favourite in the high 20s is a long way from a lock. Last season's favourite at the equivalent stage, Ohio State, did not win a playoff game.
- Seeds matter less than the bracket path. Three of the four 2025–26 quarter-finals went against the higher seed.
- The playoff moves prices fastest. Indiana's price nearly tripled in nine days in January. Holding a futures position into the playoff means accepting swings of that size.
How to trade college football markets on Kalshi, from game lines to futures: how to bet on college football on Kalshi. Why a price can be read as a probability, and when it can't: are prediction markets accurate?
Method
- Data: Kalshi's 2025–26 college football championship market (KXNCAAF-26), read from its historical archive, for the 14 most-traded teams, with daily candles from August 2025 to the final.
- Prices: the daily closing price on the dates shown, by the US Eastern date. After a team was eliminated, its contract stopped trading; we end its line there.
- Results: College Football Playoff results and seeds from ESPN; the final's date, venue and score from contemporary reports.
- Limits: one season. A single champion cannot show whether a market is well calibrated, only how it behaved.
Where the money went
Source: Kalshi market data: KXNCAAF-26, total volume per team
Show the dataHide the data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Miami | 59.1m |
| Indiana | 33.6m |
| Georgia | 8.0m |
| Ole Miss | 6.0m |
| Oregon | 5.6m |
| Ohio State | 5.6m |
| Alabama | 4.6m |
| Texas Tech | 3.6m |
The two finalists accounted for about two-thirds of all trading. Ohio State, the favourite for most of November, drew less than a tenth of Miami's volume. Money followed the teams that were still playing, and especially the matchup in the final, rather than the teams the market rated highest earlier in the season.
The pattern mirrors what we found in the 2026 World Cup and last season's NBA and NHL championship markets: attention, and money, concentrates on the games being played and the names in the news, not on the long-run forecast.
That is useful to know for anyone reading volume as a signal: high volume on a team says it is popular, not that it is likely to win.
Key points
- Champion: Indiana, 16-0, priced at about 1% on Kalshi before the season and 75% before the final.
- Runner-up: Miami, the No. 10 seed, priced as low as 0.5% in early November.
- Missed: the August favourite, Texas (16%), did not make the playoff; Ohio State peaked at 38% and lost its first playoff game.
- Volume: about 142 million contracts, with Miami the most traded team at about 59 million.
- This season: Georgia leads Kalshi's market at about 29% on 8 November 2026.
FAQ
Who won the 2025–26 College Football Playoff? Indiana, who beat Miami 27-21 in the national championship game on 19 January 2026 to finish 16-0.
What were Indiana's odds before the season? About 1% on Kalshi in August 2025.
Who was the preseason favourite? Texas, at about 16% on Kalshi. It did not make the playoff.
How accurate are College Football Playoff predictions from the markets? Last season the market's favourites at most stages did not win, but it correctly treated the playoff as open and moved quickly once results came in.
Who is favoured this season? Georgia, at about 29% on Kalshi on 8 November 2026.
Data from August 2025 to 19 January 2026; current prices as of the morning of 8 November 2026. Sources: Kalshi public market data and historical archive; ESPN; NCAA. Not betting advice.
