At 10:47 AM ET on Friday, September 4, ScreenRant wrote up By Any Means, the Paramount thriller with Mark Wahlberg as the mob hitman Gregory Scarpa and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Wayne Strider, the FBI agent who partners with him, as an opening-day 61% on Rotten Tomatoes: Fresh, barely, on Labor Day weekend. The Kalshi board on the film, ticker KXRT-BYA, had stopped believing that number before the piece went up. The contract that pays if the final Tomatometer lands above 60 had traded at 88 cents on Thursday afternoon and at 60 cents in Thursday's last print. Between 10:17 and 10:21 AM Friday it was sold from 31 cents down to 10, with a single 531-contract print at 24 cents along the way. By my 4:24 PM ET pull the Rotten Tomatoes page had caught up with the market: 56% on 41 reviews, 23 positive against 18 negative, and the Fresh badge gone between the morning write-ups and my afternoon pull.
The market had repriced before any public write-up printed a number below 67, and the question it asks now sits one rung lower and is a good deal sharper. The score on the page is 56. The strike that pays on a 56 or better, Above 55, is quoted at 25 cents bid against 44 cents ask: a market leaning toward the score not holding, with a 19-cent gap between the two prices that says almost nobody is sure. I wrote up Onslaught on Thursday night, the other wide release that settles on the same Monday morning, and that board's decisive strike was quoted 25 cents against 26, one cent wide. This one's is quoted 25 against 44, with 17 contracts sitting at the bid. What that gap is made of, who has been paying it all day, and the single review that can push the strike below the line, follow.
These are market prices and model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange. Kalshi requires users to be 18+ under its own platform policy, and availability varies by state. Rotten Tomatoes has not endorsed these markets; references to Rotten Tomatoes here are descriptive only.
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The Quick Answer
Kalshi's By Any Means market, KXRT-BYA, settles on the film's Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer at 10:00 AM ET on Monday, September 7, Labor Day. At 4:24 PM ET Friday the page read 56% on 41 reviews. The Above 55 contract was 25 cents bid against 44 ask, Above 50 was 69 against 71, and Above 60 had fallen to 6 against 10 from the 60s on Thursday night. The 55 strike is one negative review from breaking, and the whole quote rests on 17 contracts at the bid and 10 at the ask. The ladder, the depth behind every price, and the review counts each strike needs before Monday are below.
How The Score Fell: A 73% Forecast, A 71% Peak, 56% By Friday Afternoon
Kalshi's own newsroom previewed this board on Tuesday, September 1, with the market's forecast sitting at a 73.2% Tomatometer. A 73 would have paid every strike through Above 70, and the film it was forecasting is Elegance Bratton's R-rated dramatization of the FBI investigation into the 1966 killing of the Mississippi civil rights leader Vernon Dahmer, played by Giancarlo Esposito, and the real Scarpa's role in it: written by Sascha Penn, 107 minutes, made for about $29 million, per its Wikipedia entry. Here is what happened to the 73.
The first reviews were kinder than the pool would turn out to be. MovieWeb's roundup, published at 3:05 PM ET on Thursday, September 3, counted 67% on 15 reviews and put the split on the page: The New York Times found that the film's "sincerity exists uneasily with its head smashing" and that "the buddy-cop elements feel out of place," ScreenCrush wrote that By Any Means "might hit harder if Abdul-Mateen and Wahlberg felt like they were appearing in the same movie," and MovieWeb's own critic called it a film that "pulls no punches in a savage retelling of a horrific crime from America's racist past." Fiction Horizon caught the high-water mark at 71% in a Friday write-up with no time stamp, quoting TheWrap's "uneven but durable overall." By ScreenRant's 10:47 AM write-up it was 61%, with its own reviewer giving the film a 7 out of 10 and describing Wahlberg "in full cocky gangster mode." By my 4:24 PM pull it was 56% on 41, with an average critic rating of 5.7 out of 10, and Metacritic, which scores on a 0-to-100 scale, sat at 50 on 18 critics, its "mixed or average" band.
The two dated counts tell you what the day's reviews looked like. MovieWeb's 67% on 15 can only be 10 positive against 5 negative. Friday afternoon's 56% on 41 is 23 against 18, a split the Rotten Tomatoes page states outright. Subtract one from the other and the 26 reviews that landed between Thursday afternoon and Friday afternoon ran 13 positive and 13 negative. Exactly half, and the fastest way to walk a 67 down to a 56 with no drama required. Onslaught's pool ran colder over the same stretch: 59% on 69 reviews Thursday night to 56% on 90 by Friday afternoon is 9 positive of 21 new reviews, about 43%. The page has one more split worth holding onto: the critics Rotten Tomatoes designates as Top Critics are at 42% on 12, five positive against seven, while the other 29 reviewers run 18 positive against 11, about 62%. The weekend wave is going to look more like one of those groups than the other, and which one is the whole question for the 55 strike. I will come back to it.
The Tape: Thursday's Buyers, Friday Morning's Sellers
Each contract on KXRT-BYA asks whether the Tomatometer will be above its strike at settlement, paying $1 for Yes and nothing for No; if cents-to-probability is new to you, our Kalshi odds explainer covers the conversion and how prediction markets work covers the rest. On Thursday afternoon, with the early snapshots reading 67% to 71%, the money went one way. In the 4:00 PM ET hour Above 65 traded 2,241 contracts from 41 cents up to 71, and Above 70 traded 2,220 contracts from 25 cents up to 47. The Above 70 flow was almost entirely buyers crossing the spread, 2,214 of the 2,220; Above 65 leaned the same way at 1,435 bought against 806 sold. Above 60 printed 88 cents at 5:03 PM, Above 65 printed 85 cents at 5:54 PM. A board that Kalshi's own newsroom had forecasting a 73 on Tuesday spent Thursday's dinner hour pricing a high-60s finish.
The big selling started at 9:04 PM. At 9:04:08 a single order sold 1,500 contracts of Above 65 at 47 cents, and six seconds later, at 9:04:14, another sweep of Above 60 led with 1,799 contracts at 65 cents and totaled 1,956 contracts across 65 to 68, each cluster of fills sharing one timestamp, which is what one order walking down the book looks like. They were the two largest orders on the board to that point, and they set the direction for the next 15 hours. Above 60 closed Thursday's tape at 60 cents, printed 52 just after midnight, and by the 9:00 AM hour Friday was trading from 47 down to 34 on 754 contracts, 635 of them sold. The 10:17 to 10:21 AM sequence finished the job: 31, 30, 28, a run of 25s, the 531-contract print at 24, then 18, 17 and 10. A buyer stepped in at 10:22 for 165 contracts at 28 to 30 cents, and that was the last time Above 60 traded above 21. By the afternoon it was printing 3 to 11 cents. Friday's Above 60 tape ran 181 trades and 5,361 contracts, and the shape of it, as an illustration of what actually moves a prediction market, is a dozen reviews arriving before the entertainment press had finished writing up the previous dozen.
Above 55, the strike that matters now, had a stranger day. Above 55 printed 94 cents at 8:16 PM Thursday. At 9:23 AM Friday it was 72 and 73; at 10:22 buyers were still paying 69 and 70 for about 100 contracts, and four minutes later two contracts printed at 41. By 10:40 it was 31. At 11:12 a buyer took 100 contracts at 45, and over the next 26 minutes sellers walked it back down through 48, 43, 37, 36 and 26 to a 21-contract print at 20 cents at 11:38, the low of the day. Then the buyers came back. At 1:18 PM one order paid 30 to 32 cents for 696 contracts, 500 of them at 32, the largest buy on this strike all day, and the afternoon settled into prints between 40 and 47 before the last trade, 15 contracts at 44 cents at 3:23 PM. Read that sequence once more: 73, 41, 31, 45, 20, 32, 47, 44, in six hours, on a strike that traded 3,007 contracts all day. A price that moves 28 cents on two contracts is telling you how little is standing behind it, and the next section is about exactly that.
The tape in one line: Above 60 was sold from the 60s to 10 cents before any write-up had printed a number below 67. Above 55 has traded between 20 and 73 cents on Friday alone, and its quote is now the only real question on the board.
Two more prints belong on the record. At 12:36:03 PM one buyer swept Above 50 for 1,072 contracts from 62 cents up to 78, about $780 at risk and the most money any single Friday order put on this board, a bet that the score holds a 51 or better through Monday. And at 3:45 PM someone bought 1,666 contracts of Above 70 at a penny: $16.66 for a $1,666 payout if the print reaches 71 from 56, a lottery ticket priced like one.
The Board: Every Strike On KXRT-BYA
The ladder runs ten strikes, from Above 45 to Above 90 in fives, and the top four are dead: Above 75 through Above 90 show a zero bid against a penny ask, a displayed market with nothing behind it. The six rows that follow were pulled from the exchange at 4:24 PM ET on Friday, September 4. "Cost to buy" is the ask, the price a buyer actually pays; the bid is what a seller gets. Kalshi reports volume and open interest in dollars of contract face value, one dollar per contract, the way the exchange itself displays them.
| Strike | Bid / Cost To Buy | Last Trade | Lifetime Volume (Face Value) | Open Interest (Face Value) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Above 45 | 97¢ / 98¢ | 97¢ | $18,315 | $16,270 |
| Above 50 | 69¢ / 71¢ | 70¢ | $10,365 | $7,163 |
| Above 55 | 25¢ / 44¢ | 44¢ | $7,674 | $4,084 |
| Above 60 | 6¢ / 10¢ | 11¢ | $15,508 | $8,483 |
| Above 65 | 2¢ / 5¢ | 4¢ | $14,223 | $7,148 |
| Above 70 | 0¢ / 1¢ | 1¢ | $13,852 | $7,207 |
Prices as of 4:24 PM ET on Friday, September 4, 2026. Five of the six rows carry both a bid and an ask; Above 70 is bid-less and quoted at the minimum increment. Above 75 through Above 90, not shown, are all 0 bid against 1 ask.
The row to read twice is Above 55, and not for its volume. Above 60 and Above 65 have each traded roughly twice as much over the life of the board, because through August and most of Thursday those were the contested strikes; the volume column is a record of where the argument used to be. Above 55 is where it is now, and it is the only row on the board with a double-digit spread. Read the midpoints, halfway between bid and ask, down the ladder and difference each rung from the one above it to get the market's probability for each band of final scores: roughly 28 points on a 46-to-50 finish, 36 points on 51-to-55, 27 points on 56-to-60, and under 10 points on anything from 61 up. The fattest band is 51-to-55, which is the market saying the likeliest Monday print is a score that has slipped below the line the page sits on today. Treat that 36 as soft. It leans on the 55 midpoint of 34.5, and a midpoint between 25 and 44 is a guess about where a trade would happen, not a price anyone has agreed to.
Why The 55 Strike Is A 19-Cent Question
The order book at 4:24 PM shows what the quote is made of. On the bid side, 17 contracts at 25 cents, 5 at 24, 31 at 21 and 41 at 20. On the offer side, 10 contracts at 44 cents, 1 at 45, 11 at 46, 39 at 47, 35 at 48 and 83 at 49. A reader who wanted to put $100 on the score holding would not get filled at the 44-cent ask. They would clear every contract from 44 through 48, 96 in all, and take the rest at 49, about 208 contracts for the $100 at an average price just over 48 cents, for a contract the screen advertised at 44. A seller of the same size walks the other way, from 25 through 20 and below. The screen says 25 against 44; the honest quote for anyone dealing in size is closer to 20 against 49, a gap nearly 30 cents wide on a contract worth at most a dollar.
Put the two sides together and the round trip is the cost. Buy at 44 and sell at 25 a minute later, with no news in between, and you have given back 19 cents of 44, about 43% of the position, to the gap alone. Compare the rungs on either side. Above 50 shows 100 contracts at the 69-cent bid and 500 offered at 72 behind the 20 at 71, a two-cent spread with real size at both prices. Buy Above 50 at 71 and sell at 69 and the round trip costs 2 cents of 71, under 3%, with 100 contracts on one side and 500 on the other. Above 60 is a different case: 2 contracts bid at 6 cents with 252 more behind them at 5, and 108 offered at 10, so its round trip is nearly as expensive as Above 55's in percentage terms, and what separates it is depth. A hundred contracts can change hands there without moving the price a nickel. Above 55 is a market where the price moved from 69 to 41 on two contracts at 10:26 AM, and it is priced the way it is because nobody with size wants to be the one holding it when the next review posts.
The volume column will not tell you any of this. Above 55 has traded $7,674 in face value over its life and carries $4,084 open, numbers that look like a working market and describe one that existed on Thursday, when the strike was quoted in the 90s and the argument was two rungs higher. Liquidity is what is in the book at the moment you want to trade, and right now that is 17 contracts on one side and 10 on the other. In payout terms, a contract bought at 44 cents turns $100 into about $227 if the print is 56 or better and nothing if it is not; the other side, bought at 75 cents (a dollar minus the 25-cent bid), turns $100 into about $133 if the print is 55 or lower. Both figures are before Kalshi's fees. And the 44-cent buy quote is good for 10 contracts, while the 25-cent bid a seller would hit is 17 deep.
The Arithmetic Of The Next Review
The ladder is anchored to a raw score of 56.10, which is 23 of 41 before rounding. The Coyote vs. Acme settlement on Monday, August 31 taught two things that carry straight over: Rotten Tomatoes rounds the half-point up, a raw 95.50 printed as 96, and Kalshi's "above" is strict under its settlement rules, so a print of exactly 55 settles Above 55 as No. Put those together and each strike has a review count attached.
Above 55 needs a print of 56, and one negative review breaks it. From 23 of 41, a single negative makes 23 of 42, which is 54.76 and displays as 55. A single positive makes 24 of 42, a 57. In other words, the strike the market has spent all afternoon arguing about moves a full point on the next review, in whichever direction that review goes.
Above 50 needs a 51, and five straight negatives break it. 23 of 46 is exactly 50.00, which displays as 50, and a 50 settles Above 50 as No. That is the cushion the 12:36 PM buyer paid up to 78 cents for: five bad reviews in a row with no good one among them.
Above 60 needs a 61, and five straight positives clear it. 28 of 46 is 60.87, a 61. The contract that traded at 88 cents on Thursday afternoon is five consecutive good notices from paying, which sounds close until you remember the last 26 ran exactly half.
Straight runs are the edges, and review pools do not move in straight runs; they move by composition. Onslaught's pool grew from 69 reviews on Thursday night to 90 by Friday afternoon, 21 reviews in a day, so 20 to 30 more before Monday's snapshot is a reasonable wave for a wide release on a holiday weekend. The table puts the three live strikes side by side against that wave.
| Strike | Score it needs Monday | Straight run that decides it now | Positives needed in the next 20 reviews | In the next 30 | In the next 60 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Above 50 | 51 or higher | Five negatives in a row break it | 8 of 20 (40%) | 13 of 30 (43%) | 29 of 60 (48%) |
| Above 55 | 56 or higher | One negative breaks it | 11 of 20 (55%) | 17 of 30 (57%) | 34 of 60 (57%) |
| Above 60 | 61 or higher | Five positives in a row clear it | 14 of 20 (70%) | 20 of 30 (67%) | 39 of 60 (65%) |
Arithmetic from 23 positive of 41 reviews, the split shown on the Rotten Tomatoes page at 4:24 PM ET Friday, with Rotten Tomatoes rounding to the nearest whole number and Kalshi settling strictly above each strike.
The middle row is the one that carries the 19-cent spread, and its bar barely moves with the size of the wave: 55% of the next 20, 57% of the next 30, 57% of the next 60. It is a question about the tone of the weekend's reviews, and almost nothing else. Feed the recent clip forward and the answer is No: 30 more reviews at the 50% the last 26 ran land at 38 of 71, a 54, which pays Above 50 and buries Above 55; 60 more at that clip land at 52. The market's fattest band, 51-to-55, is that clip carried forward with a little room on either side.
The case for the other side is the split I flagged earlier. The Top Critics, the 12 reviewers Rotten Tomatoes designates as such and scores separately from the number that settles this board, ran 42% positive; the other 29 ran 62%. The wave that arrives after a wide release is filled in by regional and general-audience critics, the second group, and if 30 more reviews run at that group's 62%, the pool lands at 42 of 71, a 59: Above 55 pays with three points to spare and Above 60 still does not. The 1:18 PM buyer who paid 32 cents for 500 contracts was taking that view, and at 32 cents it turns $100 into about $312 if the print holds 56. The 34.5-cent midpoint is the market splitting the difference between the two groups and leaning, a little, toward the senior one. The reader who wants to take either side should re-run the one-review and five-review arithmetic against whatever count the page shows when they look, because 41 will not be the number for long, and should check the book before the screen price, because 44 cents is a quote for ten contracts.
- Onslaught Rotten Tomatoes: Fresh On Monday, Rotten On Opening Eve
- Coyote Vs. Acme Rotten Tomatoes: 96 Held. The Margin Was Zero
- Kalshi Rotten Tomatoes Markets: How Contracts Settle
- How Kalshi Settlement Works
- Kalshi Fees Explained
The Read
Settlement is one snapshot: the Tomatometer displayed at 10:00 AM ET on Monday, September 7, strictly above the strike, with the Fresh badge playing no part (full mechanics in the Kalshi Rotten Tomatoes markets explainer). Readers newer to event contracts can start with what the price means.
Strip the badge off and this board is asking one question in one wide price: do the weekend's critics look like the Top Critics or like everyone else? The two groups sit 20 points apart on the same film, the score on the page sits one review from the line, and the strike that decides it is quoted 19 cents wide because the honest answer to that question is that a dozen reviews will settle it and none of them have posted yet. The market has already been right once on this film. It sold Above 60 from 60 cents at Thursday's last print to 10 cents by 10:21 AM Friday, before any public write-up had printed a number below 67, and the page followed it down by mid-afternoon. On the 55 strike it has not committed, and the book, 17 contracts against 10, is the clearest statement of that I can find.
The part I keep coming back to is the pair. Onslaught and By Any Means, the two Labor Day weekend releases we have boards on, both sat at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes at my Friday afternoon pull, both Rotten, both settling on the same Monday morning. Onslaught's decisive strike was deep and one cent wide when I wrote it up Thursday night. This one's is one review and 27 contracts wide. Same score, same settlement, opposite markets. Monday at 10:00 AM ET grades both boards and this page with them, and the rest of the boards we grade in public, across politics, sports and entertainment, are on the prediction markets hub.
