Kalshi filed on Tuesday with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission seeking approval to offer leverage on its event contracts, a move the company says is aimed at drawing institutional traders to its prediction markets, according to CNBC.
The filing came from Kalshi Klear, the company’s internal clearinghouse. With margin trading, a trader uses borrowed funds to gain exposure to more of an asset than their own cash would cover — a standard practice in equities and derivatives markets, though one not yet permitted on regulated U.S. event contract exchanges, where all positions are currently fully collateralized.
In a memo provided to CNBC, Kalshi said leverage would make longer-dated prediction markets more attractive to institutions. Kalshi also described plans for a tiered structure in which the collateral needed to maintain a leveraged position would rise the closer a contract gets to settling.
Access to leverage, if the CFTC signs off, would be restricted to self-clearing members who satisfy specified capital thresholds given their direct clearing relationships with Kalshi Klear, a company spokesperson confirmed. The company said it would not offer margin on sports event contracts, or on its culture and “mention” markets.
Leverage is already a feature on Kalshi’s perpetual futures products, but the company has not yet cleared the regulatory bar to extend it to its prediction market offerings.
The push for margin access reflects a broader effort by prediction market platforms to attract institutional participation. Polymarket, a rival, made moves in July to obtain regulatory licenses that would eventually allow it to offer margin trading on event contracts in the U.S., according to CNBC.
Tuesday’s filing is the latest in a string of expansion moves by Kalshi. The platform launched a professional trading terminal for its most active users, offering features including deeper order book visibility and risk management tools for perpetual positions. The company accounts for more than 90% of prediction market activity in the U.S., with annualized trading volume climbing from $52 billion to $178 billion over six months.
Kalshi has also been expanding internationally. The company partnered with brokerage infrastructure startup Alpaca to make its event contracts available to users outside the U.S., and earlier partnered with Canadian financial firm Wealthsimple to bring its markets to Canada.
CNBC, which reported on the filing, holds a minority stake in Kalshi and has a customer acquisition arrangement with the company.
