Person using a crypto trading app on a phone for a ProCoinNews article about Polymarket margin trading.

Polymarket Wants to Put U.S. Prediction Markets on Margin

By Isaac • July 11, 2026 1:18 pm • Comments

Polymarket wants to make a major change to its regulated U.S. prediction market.

The company is seeking permission to offer margin trading, a structure that would let customers open positions without putting up the full possible loss in cash at the start.

That could free up capital for active traders. It would also bring leverage and a new layer of risk into markets that settle on elections, sports, economics, weather, and other real-world events.

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Bloomberg Law reports that Polymarket’s U.S. affiliate, Coming Home GBA LLC, filed an application with the National Futures Association on July 3 to operate as a futures commission merchant, commonly called an FCM.

An FCM is the regulated intermediary that solicits or accepts customer orders for futures and related derivatives while handling the money or other assets used to support those trades. That registration would give Polymarket part of the structure needed to carry customer positions on margin.

The filing alone does not authorize the product. Polymarket would still need the registration process to run its course and would need the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to approve changes to the exchange’s rules before customers could trade positions that are not fully collateralized.

No launch date, initial margin schedule, maintenance requirement, liquidation policy, or eligible customer list has been announced. Those details will determine how much leverage the platform could offer and how quickly a losing position could be closed.

The Polymarket U.S. rulebook filed with the CFTC shows how the current model works. Before an order executes, the clearinghouse checks the account to confirm that it can fully margin or collateralize the resulting trade and pay any amount due at execution or settlement.

If the necessary funds or collateral are missing, the rulebook says the order is rejected. That pre-trade check keeps a customer from opening a position that the account cannot support under the exchange’s existing requirements.

Full collateralization is simple from a credit-risk perspective because the money needed to cover the position is already available. The cost is capital efficiency: an active trader may have cash tied up across many contracts even when only some of those outcomes can lose at the same time.

A margin framework would change that balance. Polymarket and its regulators would need rules for customer collateral, risk calculations, position limits, margin calls, forced liquidation, and shortfalls when a market moves sharply near resolution.

The application arrives while Polymarket is broadening the products it puts in front of customers. The platform announced Friday that combined sports picks, which it calls Combos, are now live.

The Associated Press describes two Polymarket businesses that look similar to customers but operate under very different structures. Polymarket U.S. is a centralized, CFTC-regulated platform funded with traditional U.S. dollars.

The international operation runs on blockchain infrastructure and requires cryptocurrency. It also offers a much wider selection of contracts, while the U.S. exchange operates with a narrower menu and more regulatory restrictions.

Polymarket returned to the American market at the end of 2025 after acquiring derivatives exchange QCEX and its regulatory licenses. The company has since hired compliance, surveillance, enforcement, and regulatory personnel as it tries to separate the U.S. business from controversies attached to its offshore platform.

The AP found that Polymarket and rival Kalshi had generated $26.6 billion in combined trading volume, with roughly two-thirds of that activity on Kalshi. Polymarket’s push for margin is therefore also a competitive move against the larger U.S. platform.

Polymarket’s regulatory history makes the new application especially striking. In 2022, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission imposed a $1.4 million penalty and ordered the company to wind down markets that did not comply with federal derivatives law.

The agency found that Polymarket had offered event-based binary options through an unregistered facility. The settlement required the company to stop violating the Commodity Exchange Act while recognizing its cooperation with the investigation through a reduced penalty.

Four years later, the company is trying to expand through the front door of the regulated system. The FCM application and proposed rulebook changes put the decision with the NFA and CFTC instead of asking customers to rely on an offshore workaround.

Approval would mark a dramatic change from the 2022 enforcement order. A denial or a heavily restricted approval would show where federal regulators intend to draw the line as prediction markets adopt tools long used in futures and securities trading.

CoinDesk reports that Kalshi received clearance for margin trading in March, giving Polymarket a direct precedent and a competitive reason to move quickly. Kalshi’s head start means the application is not a theoretical test of whether any U.S. prediction market can use margin.

The sector is growing fast enough to make the fight consequential. CoinDesk put total prediction-market volume at $51 billion last year and said the market was on pace for roughly $240 billion in 2026.

The outlet also cited a Bernstein forecast that volume could reach $1 trillion by 2030 as event contracts expand across sports, politics, crypto, economics, and other categories. Forecasts can miss, but the current growth gives regulators a much larger market to supervise than the one Polymarket left in 2022.

Margin could attract professional traders who want to deploy capital across many positions. It could also make losses arrive faster for customers who treat leverage as free buying power instead of borrowed risk capacity.

Binary event contracts add their own complication. A position can move abruptly when a decisive report, official result, or settlement ruling lands, leaving less time to add collateral or exit than traders may expect from a continuously priced asset.

The application therefore has two stories inside it. Polymarket is trying to catch a regulated rival, and federal agencies must decide how much leverage belongs in a product category that many customers still experience as simple yes-or-no wagering.

The next milestones are concrete: NFA action on the FCM application, a proposed rulebook amendment, and a CFTC decision on the controls surrounding non-fully collateralized positions.

Until those approvals arrive, Polymarket’s U.S. customers remain under the existing collateral rules. The company has filed for margin, but it has not won it.

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