How long until your balance is $0 in this market?
Enter what you'd start with, how much you'd put on each trade and how often you'd play. We run a few hundred careers through the market at its own odds, with the venue's fees charged on every trade, and play the typical one forward. The red line is one real simulated career; the blue band is where 80% of them landed.
Running…
How it works: each trade buys stake ÷ price contracts and pays the venue's fee on the way in (Kalshi: 7% × contracts × price × (1 − price), rounded up; Polymarket US: Θ × price × (1 − price) per share for orders that take liquidity, Θ = 9.5% for accounts under $10,000 of 30-day volume since 6 November 2026, down to 6.95% for the largest accounts and for a new account's first week). You win with probability equal to your win rate, which is the price unless you move the slider; a win pays $1 per contract, a loss pays nothing, and you hold to settlement. 300 careers, the same every time for the same inputs, so a result you share can be reproduced. This is what the arithmetic does on average; it is not a forecast of anyone's results, and it is not investment advice. Problem gambling help: 1-800-GAMBLER.
Why the curve only goes one way
The market is already the forecast
A 50¢ contract is the crowd saying 50%. To beat it you need information the crowd doesn't have, every time, by more than the fee. Most people's "edge" is a feeling about a chart. Slide the win rate up a few points and see how much better than the market you would have to be, consistently, just to stand still.
The fee is the only certainty
Wins and losses average out. The fee doesn't; it leaves on every trade. That is why the median of hundreds of careers slopes down at the fee rate, and why "I'm up this week" and "I'll be down this year" are both usually true.
Streaks are normal, and expensive
At a 50% win rate, five losses in a row happens to most people every month. The streak isn't the problem; what people do after it is. Switch on "double after a loss" and watch the same market end a career three times faster.
Nobody rides to zero in one go
Real people stop, feel better, and deposit again. The chart is the same; it just has pauses in it. If you want to play anyway, read the deal first: what the account asks for, what the bonus really is, and whether we're paid.