How it works.

Prices and volumes shown on this site are illustrative. They are not derived from trading and no market shown here has settled.

A market is a question with two answers

Every market on NdioLa is one public question with exactly two readings. Ndio is Swahili for yes, La for no. You buy shares in the side you think is right, and you can sell them back to the market at the prevailing price at any time while the market is open.

Each market states, before it opens: the exact question, the date it closes, and the named public source it will be settled against. If a question cannot be given all three, it is not listed — see What we don’t list.

A price is a probability

A share costs between KSh 0 and KSh 10, and the price is the market’s estimate of the chance that side is right. Divide by ten and you have the percentage.

Take Shilling to US Dollar below 130? on the board. Ndio is priced at KSh 6.20, which is the market saying 62%. La is priced at KSh 3.80, which is the same market saying 38% the other way. The headline percentage on every card is that number and nothing else.

The two sides always sum to KSh 10

A Ndio share and a La share in the same market always add up to KSh 10, at every moment, in every market. KSh 6.20 and KSh 3.80. This is what makes the price readable as a probability: the two sides are two halves of one certainty, so 62% and 38% have to come to 100%.

It also means a price moving is a probability moving. When Ndio rises to KSh 7.00, La has fallen to KSh 3.00 in the same instant.

Every correct share pays exactly KSh 10

When a market settles, every share on the correct side pays KSh 10. Every share on the other side pays nothing.

The KSh 10 is fixed. It does not rise because a market was busy, and it does not fall because it was quiet. What changes with the market is the price you paid to get a share, never what that share returns. Buy at KSh 2.00 and a correct share returns five times what it cost; buy at KSh 8.00 and the same correct share returns a quarter more. The payout is the constant, and the price is the variable.

What it costs

• A trading spread of 5% is built into the price you see when you buy or sell. It is inside the displayed price and is never added as a separate line. The number on the card is the number you transact at.
• A settlement fee of 5% is charged on your net gain on a market, at settlement, and only where that figure is positive. Break even or lose, and there is no settlement fee at all.
• No withdrawal fee from us. Your mobile money provider may charge its own.

Those two are the whole of what NdioLa charges. Full detail is in Deposits, payouts and refunds.

Worked example, both directions

Using the same market. Ndio is at KSh 6.20, and you buy 100 Ndio shares.

You pay 100 × KSh 6.20 = KSh 620. That is the whole cost. The 5% spread is already inside the KSh 6.20.

If it settles Ndio — you were right

• Payout: 100 shares × KSh 10 = KSh 1,000
• Net gain: KSh 1,000 − KSh 620 = KSh 380
• Settlement fee: 5% of KSh 380 = KSh 19
• Credited to your balance: KSh 981

You are KSh 361 up on the KSh 620 you put in, and the money is available to withdraw or to trade immediately.

If it settles La — you were wrong

• Payout: KSh 0
• Settlement fee: none, because there is no gain to charge it on
• Credited to your balance: nothing

The KSh 620 is gone. It is not returned, not partly returned, and not held over against a future market. The shares you bought carried a real chance of paying KSh 10 each and that chance did not come in — that is what buying them meant. Do not put in money you cannot afford to lose.

Closing, settling and voiding

A market closes at its published close date. Trading stops, and the position you hold at close is the position that settles.

It settles when the named source publishes. NdioLa reads the answer off that source, resolves the market Ndio or La, and credits payouts within one business day of publication. If you think a market settled incorrectly, say so within seven days and the outcome is re-checked against the named source, with the result published on the market page itself so every participant sees the same answer.

It is voided where the named source publishes no result, where the event does not take place as described, where the question proves ambiguous, where a material error was made in writing or pricing the market, or where settlement would be unlawful. On a void, everyone is refunded the full amount they paid, with no spread and no fee retained. A void is not a settlement and nobody wins one.

Money in and out

• Deposits are by mobile money. The minimum deposit is KSh 100.
• Withdrawals go to the mobile money number registered on your account. The minimum withdrawal is KSh 1,000.
• Everything is in Kenya Shillings. Money you have deposited but not used to buy shares is yours and can be withdrawn in full at any time.

Finding a market

The board filters on two independent axes: category and region. Two rather than one, because the audience cares about Kenyan, East African and global questions differently, and a single row of category chips loses that. An inflation print and a launch schedule are different subjects; a Kenyan question and a global one are a different kind of interest. You can hold one axis and move the other.

Before you go further

NdioLa is not open yet. There is no account to create on this site and nowhere to deposit money, and every price and volume shown anywhere on it is illustrative. If you want to be told when it opens, the download page has a way to ask.

The rules that decide what gets listed at all are on What we don’t list. The binding versions of everything on this page are the Terms of service and Deposits, payouts and refunds.