The price is attached to a sentence. Source, clock, what counts. Skip the sentence and you’re comparing logos.
That’s why the market guides spend more time on the rule than on “what the market thinks.” We don’t have a live book. We have a habit: cents first, rule first, venue second.
What has to be in the sentence
A source — a clerk, an FOMC statement, NHC, a named newspaper, a 10-K. Not a social post unless the contract says so. A clock: by date, after a meeting, year-end 23:59 UTC. Calendars fail contracts that vibes would pass. A threshold: above, at-or-above, certified as passed, mentioned at least once. Small words move a dollar. And a dispute path, because prints get messy. We don’t reprint venue rulebooks. We tell you to open them.
Where this shows up on the map
Politics contracts usually need a certification or seating rule, not a network projection. Economics contracts need the series (core vs headline) and the release. Mention markets need an allow-list of sources and a window. Weather contracts need an agency and a geography. Crypto threshold contracts need an index and a timestamp. Tech contracts need evidence of “shipped.”
Sports-themed event contracts still settle on a named league source and cutoff. They are not graded like a sportsbook parlay, even when the brand on the app is FanDuel Predicts or DraftKings Predictions.
Settlement in the $0–$1 band
On a standard Yes/No share, a correct Yes is usually a dollar and a correct No is usually zero for the Yes leg — before fees. That’s the settlement story we’ll tell. Kalshi’s USD contracts, Polymarket’s crypto book, and a brokerage or sports-branded wrapper can share the cents format and still differ in collateral, fees, and who settles a fight.