The Chicago Board Options Exchange (BATS: CBOE), the 50-year-old options exchange that invented the VIX, is entering the prediction market space with a new product suite called CBOE Predicts.
The exchange’s first products will offer contracts on whether the S&P 500 will close above or below a specific level by the end of the trading day.
Analyst and host Scott Melker described the development as part of a sweeping convergence across financial and technology industries toward prediction market platforms.
Polymarket and Kalshi are widely credited with pioneering the prediction market model, but a wave of major institutions and corporations is now moving aggressively into the space.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) is among those joining the rush, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg directing the company to develop a dedicated prediction markets app called Arena.
Arena will trade on points rather than dollars, a design choice that appears intended to sidestep regulatory concerns around gambling classification.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has stated that prediction markets do not constitute gambling, providing some regulatory clarity for platforms operating in the space.
Kalshi, one of the original prediction market platforms, is also expanding beyond its core offering by moving into perpetual swaps on Bitcoin, blurring the lines between prediction markets and crypto derivatives.
Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) was also cited by Melker as another major player expanding its footprint across multiple financial product categories, reflecting a broader industry trend of platforms seeking to offer everything under one roof.
Melker summarized the moment as a “major convergence of multiple worlds in real time,” with incumbent exchanges, prediction market natives, and technology giants all competing for the same growing audience of retail and institutional speculators.
The rapid expansion of prediction markets into mainstream financial infrastructure signals a fundamental shift in how speculative products are being packaged, regulated, and distributed to investors across traditional and digital asset markets.
