Polymarket Wants to Let You Bet With Borrowed Money — Here’s the Catch

Polymarket, the prediction-market platform that lets people bet on everything from elections to the weather, has applied for U.S. approval to offer margin trading. In plain terms, that means letting American users place bets using borrowed money instead of putting up the full amount in cash upfront, according to a Bloomberg report cited by CoinDesk.

The company’s U.S. affiliate, Coming Home GBA LLC, filed for a futures commission merchant license with the National Futures Association. Polymarket will also need a separate green light from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to change its rulebook so bets no longer have to be fully backed by cash before they’re placed.

Why “margin” matters for your wallet

Right now, if you want to bet $100 on a prediction market, you generally need $100 sitting in your account. Margin trading flips that: you might only need to put up a fraction of that amount, with the platform effectively fronting the rest.

That’s standard practice in stock and crypto trading, where margin can amplify both gains and losses. The same math applies here — a bet that goes your way can pay out more relative to what you put in, but a bet that goes wrong can wipe out more of your money than a fully-collateralized position would. For newcomers especially, that’s a meaningfully bigger risk than simply wagering cash you already have.

Polymarket is following its biggest rival

Polymarket isn’t the first to go down this road. Rival platform Kalshi already received CFTC clearance to offer margin trading back in March, according to CoinDesk. Polymarket’s move looks like an attempt to keep pace with a competitor that beat it to the punch on U.S. soil.

That competition matters because Polymarket only recently returned to serving U.S. customers at all. Four years ago, the company agreed to stop operating in the U.S. as part of a $1.4 million settlement with the CFTC, which had alleged it was offering unregistered event-based derivatives. Its comeback has included a marketing push announced this past Wednesday aimed at convincing regulators, policymakers and everyday users that the platform can be trusted this time around.

A fast-growing corner of the crypto world

Prediction markets have exploded in size. Trading volume across the sector hit $51 billion last year and is on pace to reach roughly $240 billion in 2026, according to figures cited by CoinDesk. Wall Street broker Bernstein has projected volumes could climb to $1 trillion by 2030 as prediction markets evolve beyond niche betting into broader “information markets” covering sports, politics, the economy and crypto itself.

For everyday users, that growth is a double-edged sword. More volume and legitimacy can mean better liquidity and tighter markets, but it also means more financial products — like margin — designed to pull in bigger trading volumes, which can nudge casual users toward riskier bets than they intended to make.

What to watch next

Nothing changes for U.S. users yet — Polymarket still needs both the NFA license and CFTC sign-off before margin trading actually launches. Polymarket did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment on the application.

If the approvals go through, it will be worth paying close attention to how much leverage is on offer and what happens if a bet goes against you. Borrowed money can make a small prediction feel like a much bigger financial commitment than it looks on the surface.