The actual map of prediction markets (and where we fit)

Most “best prediction markets” pages are affiliate lists — ranked by who’s paying the writer, not by what fits you. This one has a different bias, and I’d rather name it than hide it: it’s written by majjha, the play-money one. So here’s the deal, and you can hold me to it — no rankings, no crown on our own row, and if what you want is money on your calls, this page will point you somewhere else without flinching.

What follows is just the actual map.

The split that sorts everything: real-money or play-money

Every platform on this map answers one question differently: is there money in it?

Real-money venues — Polymarket, Kalshi — are trading platforms. You buy a side with actual dollars or crypto, and if you’re right, you leave with more than you brought. They’re regulated as financial venues, they carry the deepest markets on big world events, and the numbers they produce are the ones quoted in the news. If that’s what you came for, that aisle is real, and those two names are most of it.

Play-money platforms — Manifold, Metaculus, PaperPicks, KrowdCall, majjha — took the money out and kept the game. What’s on the table instead is a score: mana, Coins, a calibration chart, a record. They’re free, and they’re where you go to actually get good at reading questions — or just to have this kind of fun without a bank card anywhere in sight. (Metaculus, strictly, skips the currency entirely and scores your forecasts straight.)

What a prediction market is doesn’t change between the aisles. What sits behind each call does.

The map, in one table

Platform	Money model	Play with	Payoff	Best for	Status
Polymarket	Real-money	Crypto (USDC)	Money, if you’re right	Deep markets on world events	Live
Kalshi	Real-money, US-regulated	Dollars	Money, if you’re right	Regulated US event trading	Live (US)
Manifold	Play-money	Mana	More mana + leaderboards	The biggest, broadest question catalog	Live
Metaculus	No currency at all	Forecasts + scores	A calibration track record	Serious, long-horizon forecasting practice	Live
PaperPicks	Play-money on real markets	A paper bankroll	A simulated track record at live prices	Practicing on real markets, minus the money	Live (iOS)
KrowdCall	Play-money	Free Coins	Bragging rights	Private pools with people you know	Live
majjha	Play-money	Dots — free, no cash value	A public record of being right	Sharpening your read, socially	Free beta

No ranking in that order, by the way — the real-money pair leads only because they’re the two you’ve most likely already heard of.

“I want an alternative to ___”

The three searches that bring people to a page like this, answered honestly:

An alternative to Manifold. Usually this means: I like play-money markets, but not the mana economy, or not the firehose. If the firehose is the problem, Metaculus trades breadth for rigor — fewer questions, taken seriously, scored on calibration. If you’d rather play with your own people than a crowd of strangers, KrowdCall makes the pool private. And if what you want is a cleaner room where the score is simply a public record of being right, that’s the one we built — majjha is free, runs on Dots, and the record is the whole point.

An alternative to Polymarket. If you want real-money trading with a US regulator over it, that’s Kalshi — the two are each other’s alternative, honestly. If what you actually want is Polymarket’s questions without money on them, PaperPicks mirrors the real markets at live prices with a paper bankroll, and majjha gives you the no-money version where what you build is a record instead.

An alternative to Kalshi. The same fork in reverse: Polymarket for the deeper, crypto-settled catalog. And if you’re not sure you want money on this at all yet, the play aisle above is the honest answer — any of us, free.

How to choose — five questions

1. Money, or not? The only question that halves the map. Money makes it trading, with everything that comes with trading; no money makes it practice, status, and play. Decide this one first and half the names disappear.
2. How many questions do you want? A firehose where anything can be a market (Manifold, and Polymarket on the real side) — or a tighter board where every question is chosen with care (Metaculus, majjha).
3. Who are you playing with? A public crowd and open leaderboards — or just your own people (that’s KrowdCall’s whole idea).
4. What should the score mean? A pile that grows (mana, Coins), a calibration chart (Metaculus), a simulated bankroll (PaperPicks) — or a public track record under your own handle (majjha).
5. If there’s money in it — who’s watching the venue? On the real-money aisle, prefer a platform with a named regulator behind it. On the play side there’s no money in the game at all, which is rather the point.

Criteria first. The right name falls out on its own.

Our own row, plainly

majjha is a free play-money prediction market, currently in beta. Calls are made with Dots — worth nothing, on purpose — and the thing you build here is a record: proof, under your own handle, that you read the world well. No card, no catch, 18+. If you want money on your calls, two rows of this map are your venues, and this page meant what it said. If you want to find out how well you actually read the world, out loud, that’s the game we’re building.

Come read a number, and see if you’d have called it.