Hedge funds and other major Wall Street firms could soon get to bet as much as $100 million on which US political party will control Congress under a new plan from Kalshi Inc.
(Bloomberg) — Hedge funds and other major Wall Street firms could soon get to bet as much as $100 million on which US political party will control Congress under a new plan from Kalshi Inc.
The blueprint released this week by the New York-based firm significantly sweetens the pot for traders wagering on its platform. It’s the latest in a months-long face-off between Kalshi and its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, over allowing people bet on election outcomes.
Kalshi lets traders wager as much as $25,000 on everything from monthly interest rate hikes to the timing of the next moon landing. It’s recently sought to entice professional traders to its platform by raising the stakes on its monthly inflation rate contract to $7 million.
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The contracts that Kalshi announced this week have significantly higher stakes. Although betting on politics is common in countries like the UK, Washington regulators have generally blocked derivatives to wager on elections.
Kalshi has argued adding political outcomes to its mix would let people hedge against how changes in congressional control may impact everything from climate to health policies.
The new proposal is also more geared to large professional traders and other institutional investors. Although everyone could wager as much as $250,000 under the plan, big trading firms could bet $50 million on the outcome of the next congressional elections. Those with a “demonstrated established economic hedging need” could wager as much as twice that.
Under a quirk of US rules, Kalshi can self-certify that its plans are safe and above board and list the contract within days. The firm is taking this fast-track approach after the CFTC failed to green light a proposal to offer the contracts before the 2022 elections.
“My team took the commission’s feedback as well as the few critical comments and addressed them, and the contract is even stronger now than it was,” Kalshi Chief Executive Officer Tarek Mansour said in an emailed statement.
Extraordinary Steps
To be sure, the CFTC can take extraordinary steps to thwart — or at least further scrutinize — such a move in certain instances if a majority of its five commissioners consider it warranted. Late Friday, the agency said it will hold a meeting on June 26 to consider doing that.
A representative for the CFTC declined to comment.
In event contracts like the ones that Kalshi offers, prices settle at either $1 if the event happens, or zero if not and the price fluctuates before then, depending on how likely the market considers the occurrence.
CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam signaled that he is concerned. During a May interview with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots Podcast, he said that elections contracts raise “a lot of legal questions and policy questions about whether or not you would want a financial regulator policing elections.”
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