New Jersey Gas Contracts Pay on AAA's State Average, and Only When It Clears the Line

The New Jersey gas contract in one paragraph

Every New Jersey gas contract is one sentence with a dollar level in it. The daily series asks whether average regular gas prices for New Jersey will be strictly greater than that level on a named date, according to AAA, and the year-end series asks the same thing about December 31, 2026. Nothing else enters the sentence: not the pump price at any one station, not mid-grade, premium or diesel, and not a correction AAA posts after the contract has expired. Suppose, in an invented example, a rung at $3.50 trades at 60%. That figure is the market's estimate that AAA's New Jersey average for the date will finish above $3.50, and a Yes on the rung pays in full if it does and nothing if it does not.

How a gas contract settles step by step

1. Find the date and the level. Each rung is one date and one dollar figure. The daily ladder spaces its levels half a cent apart, while the year-end ladder steps by a dime, so the first reads like a fine ruler and the second like a coarse one.

2. Read "strictly greater" literally. A rung pays Yes only when the reading is above its level. AAA prints New Jersey's average to four decimal places, a hundredth of a cent, and the contract settles on that figure. In an invented case where the reading for the date is exactly $3.5000, the $3.50 rung settles No and the $3.495 rung settles Yes.

3. Notice that trading ends before the number exists. Under Kalshi's AAAGAS terms, the last trading time for a daily date is 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the day before it, and the exchange lists each date's ladder the morning before. Every daily contract is therefore priced on a reading nobody has seen, and on the date itself the board for that date has already stopped.

4. Know which reading counts. The value that settles the contract is the one AAA has documented on the expiration date at the expiration time, which the terms set at 10:15 a.m., 11:00 a.m. or 3:00 p.m. Eastern. A later revision by AAA is not counted. If AAA has no figure for the date, the contract uses the last day that has one.

5. Expect one reading to settle the whole ladder. Every rung on a date settles on the same AAA figure: each level below the reading pays Yes and each level at or above it pays No. The terms set settlement no later than the day after expiration, unless the outcome is under review under the exchange's rulebook.

6. Read the ladder as one picture. Because every rung asks "above this level?", Yes prices fall as the levels rise. Suppose, for example, three year-end rungs a dime apart trade at 80%, 50% and 15%. The middle rung is where the market sees an even split, and the steep fall on either side of it shows how narrow a range the market expects.

Where New Jersey readers stand

Whether someone in New Jersey can trade a gas contract, and on which exchange, is a question about the state's record on prediction markets rather than about the contract's wording. This guide does not answer it and draws no conclusion about any venue. The filings and orders that bear on it, each with its date, are set out on the legal status page. This guide is not legal advice and not financial advice.

Common misreadings

The contract is about the price at my station. It is about AAA's statewide average for regular gas. AAA also publishes county ranges and metro averages for New Jersey, and none of them settles a contract.

The last settled figure is the next day's answer. The settled day is history. The next date's ladder prices a reading AAA has not yet published, and the gap between the two is the one-day change the market expects.

The year-end contract averages the rest of the year. It reads a single day, December 31, 2026, and the path between now and then does not count, only where AAA's New Jersey average stands on that date.

Exactly at the level is close enough. It is not. A reading equal to a rung's level is not strictly above it, so that rung settles No.

Related guides and markets

The daily board, the weekly board and the settled history sit on the New Jersey gas prices page, and the single reading at the close of the year has its own page, the New Jersey year-end gas price market. A contract on a club's season settles on a different kind of record, set out in the guide to the Devils playoff contract, and election contracts in the guide to how a New Jersey race market settles.

This guide is not legal advice and not financial advice. It explains how a New Jersey gas contract is written and settled and takes no view on the price of gas, on any trade or on any exchange.