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Buy the favourite failed

Buy the side the market already favours, late in the window. The lab's most tested idea: it wins often and still loses money, because the price you pay already says it wins often.

Markets: Bitcoin price up down · every 15 minutes KXBTC15M

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The lab's record

Won about 9 trades in 10 and lost money anyway: one loss at 88c wipes out about eight wins. Real-money record.

Money: Real
Per contract: -1.40¢
Period: Apr to Sep 2026

Read the write-up

Pass mark

written before the first run

On a member's copy, a strategy cannot run until its pass mark is written down: minimum trades, cents a contract after fee, both halves positive, a cap on one day's share of profit, a loss-rate cap, and a judgement date. The verdict is computed only from fills made after the mark, so it can never be fitted to a result that already exists. The lab's own bar is the default.

The lab tested this shape

public numbers, 2026-10-26

The lab tested this shape. real money: 1 run, 108 trades, -50.47 dollars in total; paper: 2 graded ledgers, 8,499 trades, -0.72¢ a contract weighted, 0 passed the bar.

Run	Market	Trades	¢ / contract	Thirds	Verdict
Favourite	BTC 15 minute	5,759	-0.39	-0.32 / -0.18 / -0.66	fail	read
Favourite	BTC15M	2,740	-1.40	-2.38 / -1.95 / -0.41	fail	read
The first taker bots real	crypto, before the lab	108	-0.78		fail	read

Information, not a block. Rows marked real are from the public real-money table; the rest are paper ledgers from the lab's all-time grade. No live-lane settings or maker parameters are shipped.

Your paper result

Fills5

Win rate100%

¢ / contract+41.00

Touched, not filled0

Settled fills5 (5 won) · +205.0¢ net · 2026-10-31 to 2026-10-31
First half vs second half+40.50 on 2 · +41.33 on 3
Best single day's share of profit100% (1 days with fills)

Scored only on settled fills, the way the lab's bars are. Export this strategy's orders (CSV)

Backtest

not run yet

Asks the same honest question of Kalshi's free history: at each minute's end inside the rule's window, would this order have rested, and would a real print have gone through its price before it expired? Decisions from one-minute candles, fills from the public trade tape, settlement from the recorded result, the series' maker fee. A best case: no queue position, no latency.

Rule

Declarative: Ping never runs code from a strategy file.

Kind: favourite
Series: KXBTC15M
Acts: 60 to 300 s before close
Price range: 1¢ to 92¢
Contracts: 1
Order life: 90 s
Max open: 2
min favourite cents: 80

Strategy file (TOML)

id = "favourite"
name = "Buy the favourite"
series = [
    "KXBTC15M",
]
description = "Buy the side the market already favours, late in the window. The lab's most tested idea: it wins often and still loses money, because the price you pay already says it wins often."
contracts = 1
order_life_seconds = 90
max_open = 2
cooldown_seconds = 0
pack = "core"

[gate]
seconds_before_close_min = 60
seconds_before_close_max = 300
max_price_cents = 92
min_price_cents = 1
min_contracts_offered = 1

[rule]
kind = "favourite"

[rule.params]
min_favourite_cents = 80

[record]
status = "failed"
summary = "Won about 9 trades in 10 and lost money anyway: one loss at 88c wipes out about eight wins. Real-money record."
real_money = true
cents_per_contract = -1.4
period = "Apr to Sep 2026"
link = "https://pondletter.com/kalshi-strategies/"

Paper orders

Placed (UTC)	Market	Side	Price	Status	Fill	Fee	Result	P&L
11-01 12:31	KXBTC15M-26NOV011236-78250	YES	33¢	open
11-01 12:23	KXBTC15M-26NOV011228-78750	NO	50¢	open
11-01 11:51	KXBTC15M-26NOV011155-78750	YES	79¢	expired
11-01 10:22	KXBTC15M-26NOV011025-80750	NO	31¢	expired
11-01 06:51	KXBTC15M-26NOV010655-79500	NO	83¢	expired
11-01 03:52	KXBTC15M-26NOV010355-82000	NO	33¢	expired
11-01 03:23	KXBTC15M-26NOV010325-79500	YES	57¢	expired
11-01 02:36	KXBTC15M-26NOV010240-81750	YES	67¢	expired
11-01 00:52	KXBTC15M-26NOV010055-81000	NO	57¢	expired
10-31 23:35	KXBTC15M-26OCT312340-80750	YES	51¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+49.0¢
10-31 20:50	KXBTC15M-26OCT312055-80750	YES	82¢	filled	at price	0¢	win	+18.0¢
10-31 20:05	KXBTC15M-26OCT312010-81250	NO	43¢	filled	through	0¢	win	+57.0¢
10-31 13:52	KXBTC15M-26OCT311355-79750	YES	91¢	expired
10-31 13:51	KXBTC15M-26OCT311355-78750	YES	39¢	expired
10-31 12:50	KXBTC15M-26OCT311255-79500	NO	88¢	filled	at price	0¢	win	+12.0¢
10-31 10:38	KXBTC15M-26OCT311040-79000	YES	77¢	expired
10-31 04:06	KXBTC15M-26OCT310410-79250	YES	38¢	expired
10-31 03:05	KXBTC15M-26OCT310310-78000	NO	31¢	filled	at price	0¢	win	+69.0¢
10-31 02:21	KXBTC15M-26OCT310225-80000	YES	49¢	expired