Schwab, Kravis and Zhao are in good company. Prediction markets are hotspots for investments from the smartest billionaires in finance. Interactive Brokers founder Thomas Peterffy (net worth: $72 billion) told Forbes he tried to acquire Kalshi shortly after its angel round in 2021. Spurned, but undeterred, Peterffy’s Interactive Brokers launched a subsidiary called ForecastEx a year ago and is now competing with Kalshi, with future events ranging from the NYC mayoral race to the year-end 2025 price of Bitcoin.
In April 2024, Jeff Yass’s ($65 billion) quantitative trading hedge fund Susquehanna International Group joined forces with Kalshi to provide liquidity as one of its primary market makers. More recently, Kalshi partnered with Vlad Tenev’s ($6.4 billion) Robinhood to add event contracts trading to the firm’s growing retail investment offerings.