Prediction markets crossed the line from niche curiosity to mainstream financial product during the 2024 U.S. election cycle and have continued to scale through 2025–26. Kalshi's CFTC-approved event contracts on elections, economic indicators, and policy outcomes; Polymarket's growth (and U.S. regulatory return); and Interactive Brokers' ForecastEx have collectively produced a new asset class with billions in annual notional.
This guide compares the leading platforms across regulatory status, contract design, liquidity, and use cases for macro hedging, sentiment analysis, and pure speculation.
In This Article:
Snapshot
CFTC-regulated designated contract market. Broadest U.S.-legal contract library including elections, CPI, Fed decisions, weather, and entertainment.
Audience: U.S. retail and institutional.
On-chain (Polygon) market with the deepest global liquidity for high-profile events. Returned to U.S. access through 2024 settlement with regulators.
Audience: Global, crypto-native.
Academic-research-licensed political market. Smaller position limits and contract list than competitors but historic continuity.
Audience: U.S. retail.
CFTC-regulated event-contract venue owned by Interactive Brokers. Strong institutional onboarding, narrower contract menu vs. Kalshi.
Audience: IBKR clients.
Key Findings
- Macroeconomic event contracts (CPI prints, Fed decisions, GDP releases) on Kalshi have begun trading with tight enough spreads to be usable as cheap macro hedges.
- Polymarket retains the deepest global liquidity on geopolitical and election contracts but settles in USDC, which is a friction for some U.S. retail.
- Academic and macro research desks increasingly cite prediction-market-implied probabilities alongside survey and economist forecasts.
- The CFTC's 2024 framework legitimized event contracts as a regulated category; further product expansion (sports event contracts) remains contested.
Kalshi
Kalshi operates as a CFTC-designated contract market with full clearing and is the broadest U.S.-legal prediction market. The 2024 court ruling permitting election contracts dramatically expanded its catalog and volumes. Liquidity is now meaningful on flagship CPI, Fed, election, and policy markets.
Polymarket
Polymarket runs on Polygon with USDC settlement. Global liquidity on major events is unmatched — the platform routinely shows 8-figure open interest on individual contracts. U.S. access returned in 2024 following a regulatory settlement; KYC requirements vary by jurisdiction.
PredictIt
Operating under a CFTC no-action letter granted for academic research purposes, PredictIt remains capped at small position limits and a narrow political-market catalog. Useful for academic researchers, less so for institutional hedging.
ForecastEx (Interactive Brokers)
ForecastEx provides event contracts inside the Interactive Brokers ecosystem. For existing IBKR clients seeking simple macro event hedges with institutional onboarding, it is the path of least resistance, though the contract menu is narrower than Kalshi's.
Use Cases
- Macro hedging: Buy a Kalshi contract on "CPI above X" as a cheap call-overlay on inflation surprise.
- Election hedging for corporates and PACs: Polymarket and Kalshi for outcome-conditional exposure.
- Sentiment input for research desks: Implied probabilities as a quantitative input alongside survey data.
- Retail speculation: Kalshi for U.S.-regulated, Polymarket for global.
Related reading: Brokerage & Trading · Market Sentiment Tools · Economic Data Platforms.