How the Illinois Gas Price Contract Settles, From Listing to Payout

The Illinois gas price contract in one paragraph

An Illinois gas price contract is a yes-or-no question about one number AAA publishes: the statewide average price of a gallon of regular gasoline on a named date. Kalshi lists the series as KXAAAGASDIL and writes each date as a ladder of separate rungs, and every rung asks whether AAA's figure will be strictly greater than the price printed on it. A rung that resolves Yes pays $1 a contract and one that resolves No pays nothing, which is why its price reads as a probability.

Take an invented example: a rung marked above $4.50 that trades at 40% is the market saying a statewide average over $4.50 is somewhat less likely than not.

How the Illinois gas contract works step by step

1. A date trades for less than a day. Kalshi's Illinois listings open each date's rungs on the morning before that date, and its AAAGAS terms stop trading at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the eve of the date, which is 10:59 p.m. in Chicago. A Saturday contract is bought and sold on Friday and nowhere else.

2. Trading stops before the figure exists. AAA's Illinois page carries a figure stamped with each day's date, so every trade on a contract happens before the number it settles on has been posted. The ladder is a set of prices on how far the statewide average will move overnight from the last figure AAA showed.

3. The figure is read at expiration. The terms define the result as the average "as documented by the Source Agency on the Expiration Date at the Expiration time," and list that time as 10:15 a.m., 11 a.m. or 3 p.m. Eastern. Settlement comes no later than the day after, unless the exchange opens a review of the outcome.

4. One number settles the whole ladder. AAA prints its averages to four decimal places, and the rungs carry four as well. Carry the invented example forward: if the Illinois average for the date reads $4.5130, every rung priced below that figure settles Yes and every rung at or above it settles No. The rung above $4.50 pays; the rung above $4.52 does not.

5. Landing exactly on a rung is a No. The rules say "strictly greater than," so a posted figure equal to a rung's price leaves that rung unpaid. In the example, a reading of $4.5000 would settle the above-$4.50 rung No.

6. A gap in the data has its own rule. If AAA shows no figure at the expiration time, the terms resolve on the last available day's data. A revision AAA makes after expiration is not counted, so the number on the page at that moment is the one that stands.

Where Illinois readers stand

Knowing how a contract settles says nothing about whether an exchange may offer it to someone in Illinois. That question turns on the state's own record, including the Illinois Gaming Board's cease-and-desist letters to several prediction-market exchanges, and the record is set out item by item, each with its date, on the legal status page. This guide reaches no conclusion about any venue. It is not legal advice and not financial advice.

Common misreadings

Chicago's price is the state's price. It is not. AAA's Illinois page carries separate averages for the Chicago Metro, Rockford, Peoria-Pekin, Springfield, Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal and Decatur areas, plus county price bands, and the contract reads none of them. Only the statewide figure for regular counts.

Any grade will do. AAA's table lists regular, mid-grade, premium and diesel side by side. The contract's underlying is regular gas, so a jump in diesel or premium moves nothing on the ladder.

The pump down the street is the test. One station's sign is one retailer's price. The contract settles on AAA's statewide average, posted once a day, and any single station can sit well away from it.

A correction reopens the result. The terms say revisions after expiration "will not be accounted for," so a restated average the next week changes no payout.

The ladder is a forecast. Each rung is its own contract with its own price. The rung where the chances cross an even split is a fair reading of where the market expects the average to land, but it is the market's reading and not this site's, and no rung's price is ever blended with another's.

Related guides and markets

The daily ladder and the record of AAA's settled Illinois figures are on the Illinois gas prices page, and the state's other economic contracts gather on the money hub. Two companion guides follow a single Illinois contract from listing to payout: how Chicago temperature contracts settle and how Bears playoff odds work.

This guide is not legal advice and not financial advice. It explains how one Illinois contract settles and names no rung, no side and no exchange to use.