Interactive Brokers Launches Unified Prediction Markets Platform: Trade Kalshi, CME Group, and ForecastEx From One Screen

On May 14, 2026, Interactive Brokers announced it had solved one of institutional prediction market trading's biggest logistical problems: you no longer need separate accounts, separate capital pools, or separate order interfaces to access the three major U.S. prediction market exchanges.

The new IBKR Prediction Markets platform lets eligible clients trade event contracts across Kalshi, CME Group, and ForecastEx — all from within the existing Interactive Brokers trading environment they already use. An intelligent order router compares prices and fees in real time and automatically routes each trade to the exchange offering the best net execution price.

For prediction market traders, this is a structural change. For institutional investors who have historically balked at the compliance overhead of maintaining accounts at multiple exchanges, it may be the opening they've been waiting for.

What the Platform Does

Interactive Brokers' unified interface aggregates similar prediction market contracts from all three connected exchanges into a single searchable view. Here's what that means in practice:

Unified search and comparison. Traders can look up a contract — say, a market on inflation outcomes or election results — and see live prices, fee-adjusted bids and offers, and available liquidity across Kalshi, CME Group, and ForecastEx simultaneously. Before this launch, that required opening three separate browser windows, three separate accounts, and manually comparing numbers.

Automatic best-price routing. IBKR's intelligent order interface doesn't just show you the comparison — it executes at the best available price, factoring in each exchange's fees. Traders see across-platform pricing in real time, even within the order ticket itself.

No separate accounts or capital moves. Previously, an asset manager or hedge fund wanting to trade across multiple prediction market venues had to maintain separate compliance-approved accounts at each exchange, fund them separately, and track positions in isolation. IBKR eliminates that friction entirely.

Multi-asset integration. Prediction market positions are managed alongside existing portfolio holdings — stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, bonds — with consolidated reporting and real-time position tracking. A trader executing an event contract hedge can do it from the same interface they use to manage equities.

Institutional-grade infrastructure. Interactive Brokers says the system is built on more than four decades of proprietary trading technology — the same infrastructure institutional traders have relied on since the firm was founded in 1978.

Why Fragmentation Was the Problem

Prediction markets have grown dramatically in the United States since the CFTC's regulatory posture shifted in 2023 and 2024. Kalshi — a CFTC-designated contract market and derivatives clearing organization — raised $1 billion in a Series F round in March 2026 at a $22 billion valuation. CME Group has operated ForecastEx, its own CFTC-regulated prediction market subsidiary, since 2023. Together, these three venues cover a wide range of event contracts: monetary policy decisions, economic data releases, election outcomes, climate events, and more.

The problem was access. Individual retail traders could manage separate accounts. But institutional investors — asset managers, hedge funds, family offices — operate under compliance frameworks that make maintaining multiple separate exchange memberships expensive and time-consuming. Moving capital between accounts to chase the best prediction market price added operational overhead that made the risk-adjusted economics unattractive.

Milan Galik, CEO of Interactive Brokers, framed the issue directly: "Prediction markets are reshaping how investors think about risk and uncertainty. We decided to offer flexible access to this rapidly growing market across multiple venues from a single platform, which aligns with the convenience our clients are used to when trading US stocks or options."

He added that IBKR plans to expand connectivity to additional exchanges beyond the current three.

The Three Exchanges: What Each Brings

Kalshi is the largest and most actively traded U.S. prediction market exchange by open interest. A CFTC-designated contract market (DCM) and derivatives clearing organization (DCO), Kalshi offers contracts across economic indicators, monetary policy, weather, and — through its QCX LLC d/b/a Polymarket US affiliate — sports event contracts. Institutional trading volume on Kalshi has grown substantially alongside retail demand. Tarek Mansour, Kalshi's co-founder and CEO, said the IBKR integration is "a testament to the growing importance of prediction markets for sophisticated investors and financial institutions."

CME Group connects through ForecastEx, its CFTC-regulated prediction market subsidiary. CME Group — which operates the world's largest futures exchange — brings decades of institutional credibility and a focus on economic indicator contracts. Terry Duffy, CME Group Chairman and CEO, said the company "is pleased that IBKR clients can connect to CME Group prediction markets to trade their views on benchmarks and economic indicators," adding that expanding retail participation remains central to CME's growth strategy for these markets.

ForecastEx is Interactive Brokers' own affiliated CFTC-regulated prediction market exchange. Its inclusion in the unified platform is notable because it means IBKR is aggregating contracts from its own subsidiary alongside two external competitors — putting best-price execution above platform preference.

What Markets Are Available?

IBKR says the platform will initially focus on three categories of event contracts:

• Election outcomes — contracts tied to U.S. and international election results
• Climate events — weather and climate-related outcome contracts
• Economic indicators — contracts linked to GDP releases, inflation data, Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, and similar macro benchmarks

IBKR's CEO noted that contracts from Kalshi and CME Group are being added on a rolling basis, suggesting the initial contract list will expand. The company also signaled plans to connect additional prediction market exchanges in the future.

Important to note: the initial focus categories reflect institutional use cases — hedging macro-event risk, diversifying portfolios against policy uncertainty, taking positions on economic data outcomes. This is a different use profile than retail sports or entertainment event trading, even though the underlying mechanism is the same.

Access and Eligibility

The platform is live for eligible Interactive Brokers clients. "Eligible" in IBKR's context typically refers to clients who meet the broker's standard account requirements, which vary by account type and jurisdiction. Interactive Brokers operates globally, but prediction market contract availability will vary based on regulatory access in each country.

For U.S.-based IBKR clients: all three connected exchanges (Kalshi, CME Group's ForecastEx, and IBKR's ForecastEx) operate under CFTC regulation, meaning U.S. resident eligibility is governed by the same regulatory framework as other CFTC-regulated derivatives.

What This Means for Prediction Market Adoption

The structural importance of this launch goes beyond convenience. It reframes prediction markets as a broker-routing problem rather than a platform choice — the same mental shift that happened with equity exchanges when smart order routing became standard.

In equities, traders don't typically worry about whether their order goes to NYSE, NASDAQ, or a dark pool — their broker handles that routing automatically, seeking best execution under Reg NMS. IBKR's prediction market platform applies the same logic: the trader specifies the outcome they want to trade, the router finds the best available price across connected venues.

That normalization matters for institutional adoption. Asset managers and hedge funds that already have compliance-approved IBKR access can now add prediction market exposure without new account applications, new compliance reviews, or new custody arrangements. The prediction market category just became accessible via infrastructure those institutions already trust and use.

The timing is significant. In March 2026, the CFTC signaled it would draft comprehensive rules for prediction markets rather than pursue outright bans — a major regulatory pivot. State-level legal challenges continue in court, but the federal regulatory trajectory has become more favorable for institutional participants. IBKR's launch signals that major financial infrastructure providers are building around that trajectory, not waiting for it to fully resolve.

Limitations to Know

A few things the announcement does not address:

Retail access caveats. IBKR's "eligible clients" language means some retail account types may face restrictions on prediction market trading based on account classification, jurisdiction, or market category. Retail traders should check IBKR's specific eligibility requirements for their account type.

Contract coverage is still partial. Adding Kalshi and CME Group contracts "on a rolling basis" means the full contract catalog from each exchange is not yet available through the unified interface. Traders looking for a specific contract should verify availability on the IBKR platform directly.

More exchanges are coming, but unconfirmed. IBKR CEO Galik said the firm will "expand access to additional notable exchanges soon" without naming them. Polymarket (via QCX LLC), PredictIt, and other CFTC-regulated venues could eventually join, but no timeline or named partner was confirmed.

Best-price routing doesn't eliminate fees. Smart order routing seeks the best net price (price inclusive of exchange fees), but fees still apply. Each connected exchange has its own fee structure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Interactive Brokers now have the best prediction market prices? Not necessarily — IBKR routes to the best price across its connected exchanges at the moment of execution. But if the best-priced contract is on an exchange not yet connected to IBKR's platform (such as Polymarket global), you won't get that price through IBKR.

Do I need separate Kalshi or CME accounts to use IBKR's prediction markets? No. That's the core point of the IBKR platform: one account, one funding requirement, access to all three connected exchanges. You do not need to open or fund separate accounts at Kalshi, CME Group, or ForecastEx.

Can U.S. traders access Polymarket through IBKR? Not through this platform. The IBKR launch connects Kalshi, CME Group (ForecastEx), and IBKR's own ForecastEx. Global Polymarket (polymarket.com) is not accessible to U.S. users generally. The U.S. Polymarket offering operates through QCX LLC and currently focuses on sports event contracts, which are accessible through the Polymarket US app separately from IBKR.

Is this available outside the U.S.? Interactive Brokers operates globally, but prediction market contract availability varies by jurisdiction and regulatory access. Non-U.S. clients should verify access through IBKR's platform directly.

What happened to Interactive Brokers' existing ForecastEx offering? ForecastEx was Interactive Brokers' own prediction market exchange before this launch. The new unified platform incorporates ForecastEx alongside Kalshi and CME Group — ForecastEx is one of three connected venues, not replaced by them.

Conclusion

Interactive Brokers' unified prediction markets platform is the most significant institutional access development in the U.S. prediction market space since Kalshi won its 2023 litigation against the CFTC. By solving the fragmentation problem — multiple accounts, multiple capital pools, manual price comparison — IBKR removes the primary operational barrier that has kept institutional capital on the sidelines of a rapidly growing asset class.

The launch positions prediction markets as a legitimate multi-asset portfolio tool for professional investors, not just a retail speculative product. Whether that transition accelerates adoption at the institutional level depends on how quickly IBKR expands its connected exchange roster and how the ongoing federal regulatory framework develops.

For retail traders, the immediate practical benefit is access to IBKR's institutional-grade infrastructure and price comparison tools without the overhead of managing multiple prediction market accounts. For institutional investors, it's the compliance-friendly on-ramp they've been waiting for.

Explore prediction markets across Kalshi, CME Group, and PredictionMarkets.US for live data, pricing, and educational guides on how event contracts work.

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Sources & Verification

• IBKR unified prediction markets launch: BusinessWire press release, May 14, 2026
• Milan Galik quote, Tarek Mansour quote, Terry Duffy quote, platform features: Financial Times Markets / BusinessWire, May 14, 2026
• IBKR Prediction Markets live platform: interactivebrokers.com/predictionmarkets
• Kalshi CFTC DCM/DCO designation: CFTC Designated Contract Markets registry
• Kalshi $22 billion valuation (March 2026 Series F, $1B raised): Reuters, March 19, 2026
• CFTC March 2026 rulemaking signal: CFTC press releases, cftc.gov