Kalshi, which brokers bets, wants to go Klarna, by allowing those bettors to borrow via margin loans. If the CFTC grants approval, welcome to Kalsharna.
TechGods love offering addictive products that spin off mountains of cash. Here's the hook.
1. People struggling financially need their Kalshi bets to actually pay off.
2. 79% of prediction market users lost money over the last year, placing them in a greater hole.
3. Kalsharna will loan losers money so they can "win it back", but 4 out of five users continue to lose money on the site.
So if all this is stacked against the common person, who is winning? Who is making a fortune predicting future stock prices?
Update 9-27-26: Does margin trading work for fraudulent accounts? Futurism reported:
As gambling platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi become have more popular than ever before, financial criminals are also using prediction markets to unleash fraud and graft on an unprecedented scale.
And then came the usual TechGod response:
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan essentially told his horrified compliance team to keep raking in the cash and deal with the consequences when they come — if they ever come at all, that is.Echoes like TechGod Eric Schmidt's talk with Stanford students...
“in the regulated space, this kind of thing does not happen.”
