Virtu Financial has reportedly started trading event contracts on Kalshi and CME Group, adding another institutional market maker to the US prediction markets sector.
Bloomberg reported that Virtu has traded contracts linked to sports games and other topics, with a New York-based trader assigned to lead the effort and additional traders added globally for around-the-clock coverage.
The move places Virtu alongside Susquehanna International and Jump Trading, which have also entered prediction markets, while Citadel Securities has said it is monitoring activity without trading on those platforms.
Virtu’s involvement matters because institutional market makers can add liquidity to event-contract exchanges, where pricing is based on the market-implied probability of a result.
CME describes its prediction markets as $1 event contracts across sports, economic indicators, crypto and other categories.
The expansion comes during a period of legal uncertainty. In April, the Third Circuit ruled that Kalshi’s sports event contracts are swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and fall under CFTC jurisdiction, limiting New Jersey’s ability to regulate them as gambling.
State-level opposition remains active, with several regulators arguing that sports-linked event contracts resemble betting products. CME CEO Terry Duffy has also called for clearer rules to distinguish event contracts from gambling.
Kalshi has continued to pursue broader commercial visibility despite that scrutiny. Earlier this week, Kalshi was named the official prediction market partner of Madison Square Garden in a multi-year deal.
Kalshi has also hired Sudhir Jain as Chief Compliance Officer amid increased scrutiny of insider trading controls in event-contract markets
