Kalshi's World Series 2026 board has one clear favorite, and eight AI models that never saw a price say it is the wrong one. The Los Angeles Dodgers cost roughly twice what the panel thinks they are worth. Milwaukee, which had the better record and the better run differential when we pulled the board on August 22, is the panel's pick and the market's distant second.
The Quick Answer
Kalshi's World Series 2026 favorite is the Los Angeles Dodgers at 32.85 cents, the price of a contract that pays $1 if they win. Eight AI models that saw the standings but no prices put the Dodgers at 16.1% and Milwaukee first at 16.9%. The market and the panel agree almost exactly on the New York Yankees and split hardest on Los Angeles.
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The Board
Every club, sorted by the panel's number. Kalshi is the midpoint between the best bid and the best ask, fetched August 22, 2026 at 12:26 p.m. ET; Panel is the median of eight models that each scored all 30 clubs without seeing a price, rescaled to sum to 100. Records are as of the same date. The market is Kalshi's Pro Baseball Champion 2026 contract, ticker KXMLB-26, one yes/no contract per club, expected to expire November 1, 2026. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state).
| Club | Record | Where it sits | Kalshi | Panel | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milwaukee Brewers | 80-49 | Division lead, bye | 12.3¢ | 16.9% | +4.6 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 78-51 | Division lead, bye | 32.85¢ | 16.1% | -16.7 |
| New York Yankees | 73-55 | Wild card 1 | 9.5¢ | 9.6% | +0.1 |
| Atlanta Braves | 75-54 | Division lead, no bye | 5.95¢ | 9.6% | +3.6 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 76-52 | Division lead, bye | 7.95¢ | 8.6% | +0.7 |
| Chicago Cubs | 74-55 | Wild card 1 | 5.15¢ | 7.6% | +2.4 |
| Boston Red Sox | 69-59 | Wild card 2 | 5.55¢ | 7.0% | +1.5 |
| Chicago White Sox | 67-61 | Division lead, bye | 3.05¢ | 5.1% | +2.0 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 71-58 | Wild card 2 | 4.95¢ | 4.4% | -0.6 |
| San Diego Padres | 69-60 | Wild card 3 | 2.55¢ | 3.2% | +0.6 |
| Houston Astros | 65-64 | Division lead, no bye | 2.6¢ | 2.6% | even |
| Texas Rangers | 64-65 | Wild card 3 | 1.25¢ | 2.0% | +0.8 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 68-61 | Out, 1.0 back | 1.05¢ | 1.7% | +0.6 |
| Detroit Tigers | 61-67 | Out, 2.5 back | 0.9¢ | 1.3% | +0.4 |
| Cleveland Guardians | 63-66 | Out, 1.0 back | 0.8¢ | 0.9% | +0.1 |
| Minnesota Twins | 63-66 | Out, 1.0 back | 0.6¢ | 0.8% | +0.2 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 66-64 | Out, 3.5 back | 0.25¢ | 0.6% | +0.3 |
| Miami Marlins | 65-64 | Out, 4.0 back | 0.05¢ | 0.5% | +0.5 |
| Seattle Mariners | 61-68 | Out, 3.0 back | 1.65¢ | 0.4% | -1.2 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 63-67 | Out, 6.5 back | 0.05¢ | 0.3% | +0.2 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 63-67 | Out, 1.5 back | 0.95¢ | 0.2% | -0.7 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 62-67 | Out, 2.0 back | 0.35¢ | 0.2% | -0.1 |
| Washington Nationals | 61-69 | Out, 8.5 back | 0.05¢ | 0.1% | +0.1 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 61-68 | Out, 8.0 back | 0.05¢ | 0.1% | even |
| New York Mets | 58-71 | Out, 11.0 back | 0.05¢ | 0.1% | even |
| Kansas City Royals | 56-74 | Out, 8.5 back | 0.05¢ | 0.1% | even |
| San Francisco Giants | 52-76 | Out, 16.5 back | 0.05¢ | 0.0% | even |
| Los Angeles Angels | 51-78 | Out, 13.0 back | 0.05¢ | 0.0% | even |
| Colorado Rockies | 50-78 | Out, 18.5 back | 0.05¢ | 0.0% | even |
| Athletics | 49-80 | Out, 15.0 back | 0.05¢ | 0.0% | even |
Ten of the 30 contracts, from Miami down to the Athletics, had no real bid when we pulled them, so their prices are placeholders rather than live quotes.
More boards from the same panel: NL champion 2026 has the Dodgers at 42.5¢ · AL pennant 2026 has the Yankees on top at 25.5¢ · World Series matchup 2026 prices Yankees vs Dodgers at 12.2¢. Prices fetched August 22, 2026.
Every seat on this panel is graded in public against real market settlements; each model's running record is on the full graded scoreboard.
Model estimates generated August 22, 2026. These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Models are frequently wrong; the market price reflects real traders' money.
Is The Dodgers Price Right?
On August 22 the Dodgers were 78-51 with a plus-146 run differential, second-best in baseball, and held one of the National League's two first-round byes. They are also the reigning champion twice over, the only club in the panel's history file to repeat since the late-1990s Yankees. Every model had all of that in front of it.
None of them priced it at 32.85 cents. The highest number any seat gave Los Angeles was 17.1 and the lowest was 14.0. The panel's read is that being one of the two best clubs in baseball has historically been worth something in the mid-teens, not a third of the board.
The history file sets that ceiling. Across the 31 seasons from 1995 through 2025, the club with baseball's best regular-season record won the title 8 times. The median champion ranked fourth by winning percentage, and roughly half of the champions were not top-three clubs at all.
Section 3 caps the top: best record won 8/31, median champion ranked 4th, and only one of four 12-team-era champions had the best record. Nobody clears 15.2.
— Claude Opus
Opus finished at 14.0, the lowest number on the board, arguing that the National League's strength edge only cashes in the World Series itself and is worth less in a best-of-seven than the rest of the panel assumed. A Dodgers title would not prove the panel wrong on its own. A 16% shot wins about one time in six, and the settled contract grades the price, not the outcome.
Milwaukee: The Panel's Favorite, The Market's Second Choice
Milwaukee was 80-49 on August 22 with a plus-160 run differential, best in baseball on both counts, and held the National League's top bye.
Kalshi's midpoint was 12.3 cents. The panel put the Brewers at 16.9%, first on the board, and every seat but GLM had them strictly ahead of Los Angeles.
Milwaukee's +160 run differential and first-round bye, combined with the Dodgers' +146 differential and championship pedigree, make them the clear co-favorites.
— DeepSeek
The market's gap between the two clubs, 20.55 cents, is larger than the whole price of every other club on the board. The panel's gap between them is less than a point.
The Yankees: A Wild Card Priced Like The AL Favorite
New York was 73-55 on August 22, in the American League's first wild-card slot and three games behind Tampa Bay in the AL East. Kalshi priced the Yankees third on the whole board at 9.5 cents, ahead of four division leaders, and made them the outright favorite on the AL pennant board.
This is the one place the market and the panel land on the same number: the blend came in at 9.6%. The models got there from run differential rather than the standings. New York was plus-96; Tampa Bay, ahead of them and holding a bye, was plus-43.
One structural wrinkle none of the other forecasters flagged: NYY (seed 4) and BOS (seed 5) are drawn to play EACH OTHER in the wild-card round, so their combined mass is partly self-cannibalizing -- whichever wins already survived the toughest first-round matchup on the board.
— Claude Sonnet
The division race itself is priced on the AL East board.
The Bye Is The Board's Hidden Tax
Only the top two division winners in each league skip the opening round. On August 22 that was Milwaukee and Los Angeles in the National League, and Tampa Bay and the Chicago White Sox in the American. Atlanta, the third National League division leader, skips nothing.
That is why the White Sox carry one of the larger positive gaps on the board: 3.05 cents on the market against 5.1% from the panel. At 67-61 they were the weakest bye holder by a distance, and the models said so.
The White Sox (67-61, +47) get 5.0 almost entirely on bracket mechanics: a bye they haven't earned on merit.
— Kimi
Atlanta is the mirror image. The Braves had the third-best run differential in baseball and the panel's fourth-highest number, a shade under the Yankees, against 5.95 cents on the market. Every seat that explained the number pointed at the missing bye, and the seats that sized it put a bye at roughly three to four points on this board.
Dark Horses The Panel Won't Dismiss
Detroit Tigers, 0.9¢ market, 1.3% panel. At 61-67 the Tigers were just outside the last American League wild card with a plus-79 run differential, the largest of any losing club by a wide margin. Gemini called them "a sleeping giant if they can sneak in."
Arizona Diamondbacks, 1.05¢ market, 1.7% panel. At 68-61 Arizona had the best record of any club outside the field, one game behind San Diego for the last National League wild card.
Chicago Cubs, 5.15¢ market, 7.6% panel. The Cubs were 74-55 with the fourth-best run differential in baseball, stuck in a wild-card slot only because Milwaukee was running away with the Central. Every seat priced them above the market.
Where The Market Pays More Than The Panel
Seattle Mariners, 1.65 cents against 0.4%, is the second-largest negative gap on the board and the largest on any losing club. The Mariners were 61-68 and three games out of a wild card.
Toronto Blue Jays, 0.95 cents against 0.2%, were 63-67 and 1.5 games out.
Philadelphia Phillies are the interesting one. They held the second National League wild card on a seven-game winning streak, and the market paid 4.95 cents against a panel blend of 4.4%. The models kept pointing at a plus-16 run differential, far behind the Cubs, the club several seats expected them to draw in the opening round.
What Would Change The Panel's Mind
Four triggers the seats named themselves, with standings as of August 22.
- The Yankees take the AL East from Tampa Bay. New York was three games back with 34 to play, and the division carries a bye. GLM and Kimi both moved the Yankees toward 11-12% in that case and dropped Tampa Bay to around 6%.
- Atlanta closes the three games on Los Angeles for the second National League bye. Gemini sized it at roughly four percentage points moving from the Dodgers to the Braves.
- A rotation injury to a top starter on Milwaukee or Los Angeles. Opus, GLM and Kimi named this independently, and all three redistribute toward Atlanta and the Cubs, taking two to four points off the injured club.
- Detroit makes the field. Opus sized a qualifying Detroit at 4-5%, drawn from Texas, Houston, Minnesota and Cleveland.
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The Bottom Line
Kalshi has one club worth roughly a third of the World Series. The models have two clubs worth about a sixth each. On the other 29 contracts the two sides sit inside five points of each other, so the argument is not about which clubs are good. It is about how much certainty five weeks of regular season and three rounds of short series can support.
These are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange, participation is 18+, and availability varies by state. Every call above is graded in public when the market settles, win or lose.
Prices and records on this page are as of August 22, 2026 at 12:26 p.m. ET, and the panel scored the field the same morning. When a bye flips, a rotation breaks or the field changes, the page gets re-read rather than replaced.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. Dodger Stadium photo by Pi.1415926535, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; photos cropped, toned, and composited.
