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Kalshi seeks CFTC approval for margin trading on prediction event contracts
Kalshi says margin access would target institutions and plans higher collateral requirements as contracts near settlement, with sports event and culture or “mention” markets excluded.
Kalshi has filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission seeking approval to offer margin trading on its regulated event contracts, aiming to attract institutional traders to its prediction markets, according to Yahoo Finance.
The proposal would allow traders to use borrowed funds to take larger positions than their cash would otherwise cover, a capability Kalshi notes is standard in equities and derivatives but not yet permitted on U.S. regulated event contract exchanges, where positions are currently fully collateralized.
In a memo shared with CNBC, Kalshi said leverage would make longer-dated prediction markets more attractive to institutions and described a tiered collateral structure that would increase the closer a contract gets to settling. The company also said leverage, if approved, would be limited to self-clearing members that meet specified capital thresholds tied to their direct clearing relationships with Kalshi Klear.
Kalshi said it would not extend margin trading to sports event contracts or to its culture and “mention” markets. The filing comes as prediction market platforms push to broaden participation, following similar efforts by rival Polymarket in July to obtain licenses that would eventually allow margin trading in the U.S.