Kalshi has filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for permission to offer leveraged trading on its event contracts. According to CNBC, the company says the move is meant to attract more institutional traders to its prediction markets.
The filing was submitted by Kalshi Klear, the company’s in-house clearinghouse. In margin trading, traders use borrowed funds to take on larger positions than their own cash would allow. That is common in equity and derivatives markets, but it is not yet allowed on regulated U.S. event contract exchanges, where positions currently must be fully collateralized.
In a memo shared with CNBC, Kalshi said leverage would make longer-dated prediction markets more appealing to institutional participants. It also outlined a tiered model under which the collateral required to maintain a leveraged position would increase as a contract moves closer to settlement.
If the CFTC approves the request, access to leverage would be limited to self-clearing members that meet specified capital thresholds because of their direct clearing relationships with Kalshi Klear, a company spokesperson said. Kalshi added that it would not offer margin on sports event contracts or on its culture and “mention” markets.
Leverage is already available on Kalshi’s perpetual futures products, but the company has not yet cleared the regulatory hurdle to extend it to its prediction market offerings.
The push reflects a broader effort by prediction market platforms to bring in institutional participation. CNBC reported that rival Polymarket moved in July to obtain regulatory licenses that could eventually let it offer margin trading on event contracts in the U.S.
Tuesday’s filing is the latest in a series of expansion steps by Kalshi. The platform recently launched a professional trading terminal for its most active users, with 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., and its annualized trading volume rose from $52 billion to $178 billion over six months.
Kalshi has also been expanding internationally. It partnered with brokerage infrastructure startup Alpaca to make its event contracts available to users outside the U.S., and earlier teamed up with Canadian financial firm Wealthsimple to bring its markets to Canada.
CNBC, which first reported the filing, holds a minority stake in Kalshi and has a customer acquisition arrangement with the company.
