Kalshi NBA Playoffs Odds: Champion, Conference And Play-In Boards
By Jake Hari
August 7, 2026
The 2026-27 NBA season has not tipped off, and the market has already built the whole postseason: a championship board carrying about 19.65 million contracts, two conference-finals boards, play-in qualification markets for all 30 teams, a make-the-playoffs board, and a win-total ladder for every franchise. This is the permanent hub for that family, the NBA slot in the same calendar set as our March Madness bracket hub. Every price below is a quote midpoint fetched from the live exchange on August 3, 2026; the page rebuilds in place through the play-in, each round and the Finals, with the "as of" stamp carrying the evidence.
The Quick Answer
The market's postseason map today: Oklahoma City (21.5 cents) and San Antonio (21) sit nearly tied on top of the championship board, with Philadelphia at 11.5, New York at 8.5 and nobody else above 5. The West is priced as a two-team race, San Antonio and Oklahoma City both at 34.5 cents to win the conference, while the East is flatter, Philadelphia and New York tied at 22.5. A separate two-contract market makes the champion 59.5% to come from the West. And at the bottom of the table, the make-the-playoffs board has already delivered verdicts: Milwaukee trades at 9 cents to make the postseason, Brooklyn at 7, Sacramento at 6.5. Every board, the seeding math and the DFS crossover are below.
New to event contracts? How to bet NBA on Kalshi covers the mechanics; this page is the postseason layer.
The Six Boards That Price The Postseason
| Market | Contracts | Volume | Current leader | Listed expiration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 champion | 30 | ~19,654,000 | Oklahoma City, 21.5¢ | July 31, 2027 |
| Eastern Conference winner | 15 | ~1,280,000 | Philadelphia / New York, 22.5¢ | June 30, 2027 |
| Western Conference winner | 15 | ~323,000 | San Antonio / Oklahoma City, 34.5¢ | June 30, 2027 |
| Makes the playoffs | 30 | ~100,000 | San Antonio, 98¢ | June 1, 2027 |
| Play-in qualification (East/West) | 15 + 15 | ~12,000 | Miami 49.5¢ / Golden State 45¢ | June 1, 2027 |
| Champion's conference | 2 | ~400 | West, 59.5¢ | July 1, 2027 |
Settlement is quoted from the contracts: the champion market resolves Yes "if [team] wins the 2027 Pro Basketball Finals," the conference boards on winning the conference finals, and the play-in markets on qualifying for the play-in tournament. Note the volume gradient: the championship board has traded more than a thousand times the play-in markets, so the further down this table you go, the more a quote is an opinion rather than a verdict.
The Championship Board
| Team | Price | Implied probability | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oklahoma City | 21.5¢ | 21.5% | ~448,000 |
| San Antonio | 21¢ | 21% | ~366,000 |
| Philadelphia | 11.5¢ | 11.5% | ~5,464,000 |
| New York | 8.5¢ | 8.5% | ~796,000 |
| Boston | 4.5¢ | 4.5% | ~377,000 |
| Miami | 4¢ | 4% | ~2,137,000 |
| Minnesota | 3.5¢ | 3.5% | ~945,000 |
| Toronto | 3.5¢ | 3.5% | ~700,000 |
| Denver | 3.5¢ | 3.5% | ~409,000 |
| Detroit | 3.5¢ | 3.5% | ~166,000 |
The price column says two-team race; the volume column tells a different story. Philadelphia's 11.5-cent contract holds about 5.46 million contracts, by far the board's largest position and more than the two favorites combined, and Miami's 4-cent contract holds another 2.14 million. That is the shape of a market where the most money is not on the most likely outcome but on the arguments: whether Philadelphia's price should be closer to its 22.5-cent conference number, and whether a 4-cent Miami ticket is a lottery ticket or a donation. Money is not probability, here or anywhere else on this page.
The same panel-and-market machinery prices the neighboring boards: the Eastern Conference verdict board (Philadelphia and New York 22.5¢ today), the Western Conference verdict board (San Antonio and Oklahoma City 34.5¢), and the full NBA champion model verdict, where our eight-model AI panel prices this exact 30-team field.
West Vs East: One Number Says It All
The two-contract conference market prices the 2027 champion to come from the West at 59.5 cents against the East's 39, and the conference boards explain why. The West's equity is concentrated: San Antonio and Oklahoma City at 34.5 cents each means the market gives two teams a combined 69% of the conference, with Minnesota next at 9. The East spreads the same probability across five real contenders: Philadelphia and New York at 22.5, Boston at 12.5, Miami at 9, Toronto and Detroit at 7.5. The conditional math is the useful part: Oklahoma City's 21.5-cent title price against a 34.5-cent conference price implies roughly a 62% Finals conversion if it gets there, while Philadelphia's 11.5 against 22.5 implies about 51%. The market is not just ranking teams; it is telling you how much of each team's championship case is conference-shaped.
The Make-The-Playoffs Board: Where The Verdicts Live
Preseason futures usually hedge; this board commits. San Antonio at 98 cents and Oklahoma City at 96.5 are priced as locks. The interesting rows sit in the middle and at the bottom. Boston trades at 79.5 cents, below Detroit's 82, a quiet market statement about the East's new order. Houston trades at 80.5, fifteen-plus points below the West's top tier despite being the team the exchange names in its own sample settlement rule. And the bottom of the board is brutal: Memphis 16.5, New Orleans 13.5, Chicago 11.5, Milwaukee 9, Brooklyn 7, Sacramento 6.5. Milwaukee's number is corroborated two boards over: its win-total ladder prices 30-or-more wins at just 38 cents, meaning the market thinks under-30 wins is the likelier side, while San Antonio's ladder prices 60-plus wins as a coin flip (50.5 cents). When the qualification board, the win ladder and the conference board all say the same thing from three different order books, that is a market-wide opinion, not one desk's quote.
The Play-In Markets: The 7-Through-10 Forecast
The play-in qualification boards are the market's read on which teams finish in each conference's 7-10 band, and they are the postseason family's most fantasy-relevant markets. Miami leads the East at 49.5 cents with Orlando at 41.5 and Atlanta at 40.5; Golden State leads the West at 45, with Dallas 44, Phoenix 43 and Portland 42 stacked behind. Read these as a stakes forecast: a team priced near 50 for the play-in is a team whose March and April games are projected to matter, which means stars playing heavy minutes late in the season instead of resting. These boards are thin (about 12,000 contracts combined), so treat individual prices as directional, but the cluster structure, four West teams within 3 cents of each other, is the market saying the 7-10 race out West is wide open.
The DFS Crossover: Seeding Races Are A Schedule Signal
This hub lives on Stokastic because playoff-odds structure is usable fantasy information all season. The practical translations: the make-the-playoffs board is a season-long motivation index (teams under 15 cents by winter are tank candidates, which means veteran rest, young-player minutes and DFS value plays down the stretch); the play-in boards flag which teams' late-season slates carry real stakes, the games where stars log 38 minutes; and the championship board's volume tells you where public attention concentrates, the same crowd-behavior read that drives ownership leverage in tournaments, a dynamic we break down in using DFS ownership leverage on event contracts. The awards layer of the same season is priced on the NBA MVP board and the Rookie of the Year board, and once real slates start, Stokastic Prop Tools is where our nightly projections meet live player markets.
Settlement Timeline
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| October 21, 2026 | The exchange's NBA next-team boards hit listed expiration as rosters lock for opening night |
| February 12, 2027 | The traded-before-deadline board settles; deadline moves reprice every board above |
| June 1, 2027 | Play-in and make-the-playoffs markets reach listed expiration |
| June 30 / July 31, 2027 | Conference boards, then the championship board, settle on the Finals |
We re-score this page as each layer settles; prices above are as of August 3, 2026, 14:56 UTC.
How To Read These Prices
- Eligibility. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange, not a sportsbook.
- Liquidity. The champion board is deep (~19.65M contracts); the play-in boards are not (~12K). Thin-board mids are directional at best.
- Vig check. The two-contract conference market sums to 98.5 cents, and the champion board's 30 midpoints sum modestly over 100; compare prices to each other, not to a perfect probability scale.
- Time. Championship capital is committed until July 2027; the play-in boards free up a month earlier.
- **Not advice. Our AI panel's numbers on the linked verdict boards are model estimates graded on the public model verdict scoreboard.
The Bottom Line
One market family, one coherent argument: the West's title equity lives in two teams, the East's in five, the champion is better than even money to come from the West, and the bottom third of the league has already been priced out of the postseason before a single game. The disagreements worth watching are the ones the boards have with each other, Philadelphia's 5.46 million contracts against its 11.5-cent price chief among them. We rebuild this hub in place as the season reprices it, and every seeding swing between now and April is a schedule signal you can read before it shows up in a DFS slate.
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Prices as of August 3, 2026, 14:56 UTC, fetched from the live Kalshi exchange. Market rules quoted verbatim from the contracts the same run.
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