Kalshi CEO’s Bold Vision For The Future of Markets | Tarek Mansour
Speakers
Jason Yanowitz
Co-Founder, Blockworks
Tarek Mansour
Co-Founder & CEO, Kalshi
- •License-first bet pays off: Tarek Mansour built Kalshi around federal approval and won a pivotal CFTC court case, unlocking elections and the path to mainstream distribution via brokerages and media.
- •Liquidity flywheel is working: Susquehanna International Group (SIG) and other market makers materially improved depth and spreads, transforming prediction markets from thin novelty to tradable asset class.
- •Scale arrive: Kalshi is running at roughly $40B annualized volume with 2,000 to 3,000 live markets and about $3B in September, indicating real product-market fit beyond a single news cycle.
- •Sports is the on-ramp, not the endgame: Sports currently drives about 80 to 90% of volume, but the long-term plan is an “everything exchange” where culture, politics, macro, and more dominate.
- •Brokerage distribution unlocks the masses: Robinhood and Webull integrations route order flow to Kalshi, mirroring how NYSE and CME scale through intermediated access; this is critical to mainstreaming.
- •Crypto will be embedded, not performative: Expect wallet connectivity and stablecoin rails, potentially including USDC at the clearinghouse, while navigating KYC and permissionless access trade-offs.
- •Competition is accelerating innovation: The rivalry with Polymarket is pushing faster product velocity, broader market catalogs, sharper liquidity, and wider cultural relevance.
On Founding Vision and Regulatory Strategy
Tarek Mansour framed the mission from day one as building the “everything exchange” and intentionally chose the hardest path first: federal legitimacy. He and co-founder Luana Lopes Lara spent years with no product, focused on licensing under the CFTC so prediction markets could be treated as bona fide financial instruments, plugged into brokerages and app stores. He contrasted this with the tech playbook of regulatory arbitrage, arguing that in finance and healthcare when things go bad, they go catastrophically bad. Legitimacy was the only way to make prediction markets broadly useful and durable.
On Suing the CFTC and Legalizing Elections
After securing designation in 2020, Kalshi still faced blocks on listing elections. The team decided to sue the government in late 2023 despite universal advice against antagonizing their regulator. They won in district court, which Tarek described as the inflection that validated the strategy and opened the floodgates for mainstream adoption. He views the 2024 election as the catalytic event for mass comprehension and believes legal clarity is the foundation for sustained growth across categories.
On Liquidity and SIG’s Role
SIG engaged early, recognizing the asymmetric payoff if elections went legal. Jeff Yass personally liked the idea of turning qualitative opinions into quantitative wagers. SIG wanted to help make it happen rather than arrive after. Their market making improved pricing, tightened bid-ask spreads, and anchored professional participation. Tarek credits this as a credibility and liquidity step that made Kalshi feel like a real exchange rather than a novelty site.
On Scale, Growth, and Market Catalog
Kalshi disclosed roughly $40B in annualized volume and about $3B in September, with a live catalog expanding from under 100 markets a year ago to 2,000 to 3,000 now. The election victory unlocked sports and non-sports listings and accelerated approvals. On election day, Kalshi recorded the highest single-day volume in prediction market history, which affirmed product execution when allowed to compete on a level playing field.
On Sports vs Everything
Right now, sports is 80 to 90% of volume because of seasonality and operational focus, but during elections politics dominated. Tarek expects sports to normalize to roughly 20 to 25% in a few years as culture, politics, macro, and other societal topics scale. The overarching thesis is that markets will coalesce around whatever is trending. The team is investing in operations to support deep catalogs beyond sports so the product feels alive across the news cycle.
On Exchange Economics vs Sportsbooks
Tarek argued the exchange model beats sportsbooks because it creates transparent, competitive pricing rather than single-venue odds making. He likens sportsbooks to OTC, where a single counterparty sets opaque prices. An exchange exposes real-time prices and depth, lets participants improve prices, and aligns incentives since users trade against each other rather than the house. He viewed recent “Big Beautiful” gambling tax changes noted by Matt Levine as likely to be repealed and not a pillar of Kalshi’s strategy.
On Brokerage Distribution and Enterprise Strategy
Kalshi’s go-to-market mirrors NYSE, Nasdaq, CME, and Cboe: intermediated access through brokerages. Direct-to-consumer at kalshi.com is the exception, not the rule. Integrations with Robinhood and Webull route event contracts to Kalshi, with Robinhood reporting 4 billion contracts all-time and over $2B in Q3. Tarek sees the combined reach of the largest U.S. brokerages at 200 to 250 million accounts as the critical path to mainstreaming the asset class.
On Crypto Integration, KYC, and Clearing
Kalshi is not a crypto-native brand, but Tarek expects crypto rails to be embedded the same way AI will be embedded across winners. Wallet connections are coming, and the company is discussing holding USDC at the clearinghouse instead of forcibly converting stablecoins to dollars. KYC is the key unresolved design decision for permissionless experiences. Tarek floated a future where on-chain identity heuristics distinguish legitimate traders from sanctioned entities to balance access with compliance.
On Product Structure
Perps, Leverage, and Risk: Tarek prefers perpetuals for digital-first markets, citing user experience and market structure advantages similar to crypto. He notes futures can be better for traditional categories tied to banking or seasonal calendars. Leverage on binary markets is attractive but risky. Sudden probability gaps can create holes if margining is not robust. Any leverage product would roll out carefully with institutional controls and likely different parameters for retail versus professional firms.
On Competition with Polymarket
He views the rivalry with Polymarket as net beneficial to consumers and to the category. It has pushed both sides to move faster on markets, liquidity, and cultural embedding. He acknowledged past missteps in public comms, says the team has pulled out of toxic tactics, and wants the competition to center on product. On valuation chatter, he downplayed headline fundraising numbers and emphasized actual scale, monetization, and enterprise integrations.
On Media Strategy and Cultural Embedding
Tarek sees a natural fit between news and prediction markets because every story can map to a tradable market. He highlighted CNN’s Harry Enten using Kalshi data, and growing usage by CNBC and Fox. The roadmap includes reporter tools, embed widgets, and eventually direct trading on partner platforms where it makes sense. He believes this can improve news by anchoring polarized narratives to probabilities.
- →Watch for clearinghouse support of USDC and broader wallet integrations that quietly put crypto rails under a regulated exchange.
- →Track expansion of brokerage and media distribution, which should compound user growth beyond sports seasonality.
- →Monitor potential launch of perps and carefully structured leverage, which would reshape market microstructure and revenue mix.