Josh Allen's NFL MVP price has more than doubled in three weeks. On September 1, Kalshi's midpoint for the Buffalo quarterback stood at 10.5¢; on September 21 it is 27.5¢, with Polymarket in exact agreement. Brock Purdy has made an even bigger jump in relative terms, from 4.5¢ to 15.5¢ on Kalshi. Nobody else is above 9¢.
Those NFL MVP odds for 2026 say two things at once. The first is that two weekends of football have reshaped the race: Allen and Purdy have opened a gap on a crowded field of former winners. The second is how much the market is willing to extrapolate from two games, which is where the opportunity and the risk both sit.
Below is the full board as of September 21, 2026, how it has moved, why Kalshi's price is the one to trust on this market, and how MVP contracts settle.
| Player | Team | Polymarket | Kalshi (bid / ask) | American odds equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Allen | Buffalo Bills | 27.5¢ | 27¢ / 28¢ | +264 |
| Brock Purdy | San Francisco 49ers | 15.6¢ | 14¢ / 17¢ | +545 |
| Lamar Jackson | Baltimore Ravens | 8.5¢ | 6¢ / 7¢ | +1438 |
| Joe Burrow | Cincinnati Bengals | 7.0¢ | 7¢ / 8¢ | +1233 |
| Patrick Mahomes | Kansas City Chiefs | 7.0¢ | 7¢ / 8¢ | +1233 |
| Trevor Lawrence | Jacksonville Jaguars | 5.2¢ | 4¢ / 5¢ | +2122 |
| Caleb Williams | Chicago Bears | 5.1¢ | 2¢ / 3¢ | +3900 |
| Dak Prescott | Dallas Cowboys | 3.8¢ | 4¢ / 5¢ | +2122 |
| Drake Maye | New England Patriots | 2.1¢ | 4¢ / 5¢ | +2122 |
| Justin Herbert | Los Angeles Chargers | 3.0¢ | 0¢ / 1¢ | — |
| Jalen Hurts | Philadelphia Eagles | 2.8¢ | 2¢ / 3¢ | +3900 |
| Jaxson Dart | New York Giants | 2.0¢ | 2¢ / 3¢ | +3900 |
| Matthew Stafford | Los Angeles Rams | 2.0¢ | 1¢ / 2¢ | +6567 |
| Jordan Love | Green Bay Packers | 2.1¢ | 1¢ / 2¢ | +6567 |
American odds in this table are calculated from Kalshi's midpoint, not Polymarket's last trade, for reasons explained below. Prices come from PredictReport's tracker on the morning of September 21; the live NFL MVP page updates every ten minutes. For the conversion itself, see our explainer on prediction market odds or run any price through the odds converter.
Josh Allen at 27.5%: The Clear Leader
Allen won the MVP for the 2024 season, and the market now makes him better than a one-in-four shot to win it again. That is a high price for September. It reflects both his start to the season and the market's judgment that he fits the award's profile: a quarterback on a winning team with a statistical case that voters can see.
The path to 27.5¢ was not smooth. Allen's Polymarket price dipped to 9¢ on September 5 before climbing, then peaked at 32¢ on September 20 before settling back. On Kalshi, which has the far deeper book in this market, the move has been a steady climb from 10.5¢.
What 27.5¢ means in practice: $100 buys about 364 contracts, which pay $364 if Allen is named MVP in February. At that price you need to believe his chance is above 27.5% — after fees — for the purchase to have positive expected value. Our expected value guide walks through that arithmetic.
Brock Purdy's Surge
Purdy is the month's most dramatic mover. His Kalshi midpoint was 4.5¢ on September 1 and 15.5¢ on September 21, peaking at 16.5¢. Polymarket moved in the same direction, from 3.4¢ to 15.6¢.
A tripling in three weeks is the market repricing Purdy's role in an offence the 49ers have built around him, alongside the team's own rise on the Super Bowl board from 4.0¢ to 8.6¢. The two markets tend to move together: MVP voters reward quarterbacks on contending teams, and a team climbing the futures board usually lifts its quarterback. Our Super Bowl LXI odds cover the team side.
Kalshi's quote on Purdy is unusually wide at 14¢ bid and 17¢ ask. That is a three-point spread on a 15¢ contract, and it is a signal that market makers are uncertain after a fast move. Buying at the ask in that situation pays for the uncertainty; posting a bid inside the spread is often the better approach. Our guide to limit orders explains how.
The Former MVPs: Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes
Lamar Jackson has won the award twice, for the 2019 and 2023 seasons. Patrick Mahomes has also won twice, for 2018 and 2022. The market prices them at 6.5¢ and 7.5¢ respectively on Kalshi, and both have been volatile: Jackson's Kalshi midpoint has ranged from 5.5¢ to 12.5¢ this month, Mahomes's from 3.5¢ to 7.5¢.
Jackson is the player on whom the venues disagree most among the contenders: 8.5¢ on Polymarket against 6–7¢ on Kalshi. If you want exposure to Jackson, Kalshi is currently the cheaper place to buy it. Joe Burrow, at 7–8¢ on Kalshi, has moved from 9.5¢ to 7.5¢ after dipping as low as 3¢ mid-month.
Former winners carry a specific advantage in MVP voting: voters already know their case. A former MVP having a strong season needs less of a narrative to win the award than a first-time candidate. The market partly prices that in, which is why the former winners hold value even after slow starts.
One warning for anyone building a position across markets: a Mahomes MVP contract and a Chiefs Super Bowl contract are not two bets, they are largely the same bet twice. If the Chiefs have a great season, both pay; if not, both lose. Our guide to hedging with prediction markets explains how to think about correlated positions like these.
Stafford and Maye: Last Season's Top Two
Matthew Stafford won the MVP for the 2025 season, announced at NFL Honors on February 6, 2026, in the closest vote since Steve McNair and Peyton Manning shared the award for 2003. He edged Drake Maye of the Patriots by five points. A year later, the market has little appetite for either repeating.
Stafford trades at 1–2¢ on Kalshi, the market pricing a repeat as unlikely for a quarterback who turned 38 in February. Back-to-back MVP seasons are rare — Aaron Rodgers, for 2020 and 2021, is the most recent quarterback to do it.
Maye is the more interesting case, because the venues disagree sharply: 2.1¢ on Polymarket against 4–5¢ on Kalshi. That is a gap of more than double in implied probability. Kalshi's traders see last season's runner-up as a live candidate; Polymarket's thinner book barely prices him. For anyone who likes Maye, Polymarket is the cheaper venue by a wide margin. His Patriots, beaten in Super Bowl LX, trade at 3.9¢ on the Super Bowl board, and an MVP case almost always needs a team near the top of its conference; the two prices are worth reading together.
Why the NFL MVP Is a Quarterback Award
Every MVP since the 2013 season has gone to a quarterback. The last non-quarterback to win was Adrian Peterson, the Minnesota running back, for the 2012 season. The market has absorbed that history completely: Jahmyr Gibbs is the highest-priced non-quarterback at 0.9¢ on Polymarket, and the likes of Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, Justin Jefferson and Myles Garrett trade at 0.1¢.
That structure matters for anyone tempted by a long shot. A running back at 0.1¢ is not mispriced just because he is cheap. For a non-quarterback to win, he would need a historic season and a year in which no quarterback builds a convincing case, which is what 0.1¢ says. The favourite–longshot bias — the tendency for cheap contracts to be overpriced across betting markets — suggests these are, if anything, still too expensive. Our expected value calculator shows why a 1,000-to-1 payout still loses money if the true chance is lower than the price.
What the MVP Market Is Really Pricing
Strip away the names and the MVP market prices a profile: a quarterback, on a team that finishes near the top of its conference, with a statistical season that is easy to summarise in a sentence. Voters are not choosing the best player in a vacuum; they are choosing the most persuasive case, and the case depends on wins as much as numbers.
That is why team futures and MVP prices move together, and why a quarterback on a losing team rarely holds a high MVP price past October. It is also why the market is so reactive in September. After two games, nobody knows which teams will finish at the top, so every result shifts both the team's odds and its quarterback's. Prediction markets are well calibrated over large samples, but early-season prices for awards carry more noise than most — our guide to prediction market accuracy explains where calibration holds and where it thins out.
How the NFL MVP Odds Moved in September
| Player | Kalshi, Sept 1 | Kalshi, Sept 21 | Change | September range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Allen | 10.5¢ | 27.5¢ | +17.0 | 10.5¢ – 27.5¢ |
| Brock Purdy | 4.5¢ | 15.5¢ | +11.0 | 4.5¢ – 16.5¢ |
| Patrick Mahomes | 6.5¢ | 7.5¢ | +1.0 | 3.5¢ – 7.5¢ |
| Joe Burrow | 9.5¢ | 7.5¢ | −2.0 | 3.0¢ – 11.5¢ |
| Lamar Jackson | 9.5¢ | 6.5¢ | −3.0 | 5.5¢ – 12.5¢ |
| Trevor Lawrence | 3.5¢ | 4.5¢ | +1.0 | 3.5¢ – 9.5¢ |
| Drake Maye | 6.5¢ | 4.5¢ | −2.0 | 3.5¢ – 7.5¢ |
| Dak Prescott | 6.5¢ | 4.5¢ | −2.0 | 3.5¢ – 7.0¢ |
Kalshi midpoints from PredictReport's tracker, which records every move of half a point or more. The top two have taken probability from almost everyone else. The ranges are the real story: several players swung five or more points inside a fortnight, which shows how much the market reacts to single games in September. The live page shows today's board.
Polymarket vs Kalshi on NFL MVP: Trust the Deeper Book
This market is a clear case where one venue's price is more reliable than the other's. Kalshi has traded about 22 million MVP contracts; Polymarket's version has traded about $1 million. The difference shows up in the spreads. On Polymarket, Caleb Williams is quoted at 3.4¢ bid and 6.9¢ ask, Trevor Lawrence at 3.6¢ and 6.9¢, Matthew Stafford at 0.6¢ and 3.4¢. Those are not prices you can trade at with confidence.
Thin books also produce misleading prints. On September 3, a Polymarket trade put Dak Prescott at 13.1¢ while Kalshi's midpoint stood at 6.5¢. On September 15, Polymarket printed Caleb Williams at 21.3¢ against a Kalshi midpoint of 12¢. Both moves reversed. A last-traded price on a thin book is one trade, not a consensus, and our guide to prediction market liquidity explains how to tell the difference.
The practical rule: use Kalshi's quotes as the reference for this market, and use Polymarket only when its book is showing a genuinely better price with size behind it. Our arbitrage scanner requires a two-sided book on both venues before flagging any gap, which is why it shows nothing on the MVP market despite the headline differences. The Polymarket vs Kalshi comparison covers where each venue is strongest more generally.
How the NFL MVP Market Resolves
The contract pays out on the Associated Press NFL Most Valuable Player award for the 2026 regular season, announced at NFL Honors in the week before Super Bowl LXI. It does not depend on playoff results; AP voters cast their ballots after the regular season ends. Since the 2022 season, voters have ranked their top five choices rather than naming a single player, which makes close races more likely to be decided by second- and third-place votes.
That ranked system is why the 2025 race was so close. Read each venue's rules for the specific source and any provisions for ties or delays. Our explainer on how prediction markets resolve covers what to check in any rulebook.
How to Trade NFL MVP Odds
MVP markets reward patience more than conviction. Early-season prices swing hard on single games, so the most consistent approach is selling into spikes rather than buying them: if a player you hold jumps ten points on one big performance, some of that jump is usually noise. Unlike a sportsbook ticket, a prediction market position can be sold at any time — our guide to cashing out early explains how.
Kalshi is the venue for this market for most US traders. It is CFTC-regulated, settles in dollars and pays about 4% on idle cash; our Kalshi review covers it in full. For the wider field, see our ranking of the best prediction markets for sports, our ranking of the best prediction market apps, and — if you are new to all of this — how prediction markets work.
Fees are small at these prices but real: Kalshi charges 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), so 100 Allen contracts at 28¢ carry about $1.42 in fees. Our market fee calculator runs the numbers. Sports event contracts face legal challenges in several states, so check our state-by-state legal map, and remember that profits are taxable when realised — see our prediction market tax guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the favorite for NFL MVP in 2026?
Josh Allen, at 27.5¢ on both Kalshi and Polymarket as of September 21, 2026. Brock Purdy is second at about 15.5¢, and nobody else is above 9¢.
Who won the NFL MVP last season?
Matthew Stafford won the award for the 2025 season, edging Drake Maye by five points in the closest vote since 2003. The market prices Stafford at 1–2¢ to repeat.
When is the NFL MVP announced?
At NFL Honors, held in the week before the Super Bowl. For the 2026 season, that means early February 2027, shortly before Super Bowl LXI on February 14.
Has a non-quarterback won MVP recently?
Not since Adrian Peterson for the 2012 season. Every MVP since has been a quarterback, which is why running backs and receivers trade at 1¢ or less.
Why are Polymarket and Kalshi MVP odds different?
Kalshi's MVP market is about twenty times deeper than Polymarket's, so Polymarket's prices are thinner and more erratic. On September 3, Polymarket printed Dak Prescott at 13.1¢ while Kalshi stood at 6.5¢. See our guide to liquidity.
How are NFL MVP prediction market odds calculated?
The price in cents is the market's probability. A 27.5¢ contract implies a 27.5% chance and roughly +264 in American odds. Our odds converter handles any price.
Do playoff results affect the MVP market?
No. AP voters submit ballots after the regular season, so the market depends on regular-season performance only.
Can I sell my MVP contract before the award?
Yes, at any time the market is open. Selling after a price spike is often better than holding through the season's volatility.
