Kalshi Weighs Late-2027 IPO at $22bn as Wealthsimple Deal Opens Canada

Kalshi, the largest US prediction market operator, is holding informal talks about an initial public offering that could reach the market in late 2027 or early 2028, The Information reported, citing sources with knowledge of the company's financials. The same week, Kalshi pushed its event contracts across the northern border through a partnership with Toronto-based Wealthsimple, giving Canadians regulated access to roughly 4,000 markets for the first time. The two moves point in one direction: a company that won its federal court fight over event contracts is now building the revenue base and the distribution footprint a public listing would require.

The IPO chatter arrives about three months after Kalshi raised $1 billion in a Series F round that doubled its valuation to $22 billion. The round, led by Coatue with Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Morgan Stanley and ARK Invest participating, lifted the New York company from an $11 billion mark set only five months earlier in December 2025. A representative declined to comment on the IPO speculation when contacted by Casino.org. According to The Information, Kalshi is asking investment banks that could run a future IPO to integrate with its platform so high-level institutional clients can trade directly, a request that would turn the listing process itself into a sales channel.

The numbers behind the listing

The financial case is the most concrete part of the story. Kalshi holds an estimated 90% share of the US prediction market and recently crossed $100 billion in lifetime notional volume. Its revenue run rate, around $1 billion annualized in March, has roughly doubled to an estimated $2 billion, and annualized trading volume climbed to $178 billion from $52 billion over the prior six months. Institutional volume rose 800% in that window, which is the part Kalshi most wants public-market and bank clients to notice. Last week the company logged its two largest single-day volumes on record.

For comparison, here is how the two prediction-market leaders stack up on the figures that would frame any listing.

The market both companies sit in is expanding fast. Global prediction-market trading volume hit $25.7 billion in March 2026, and Bernstein projects full-year 2026 volume near $240 billion. No pure-play prediction-market equity trades publicly today. Coinbase, DraftKings, Flutter and Robinhood all touch the space, but none is a dedicated yes/no exchange, so a Kalshi listing would be the first clean public proxy. That scarcity is why Casino.org expects strong retail appetite, and why an ETF issuer, Tema, is already using a special purpose vehicle inside its Durable Quality ETF to offer indirect exposure ahead of any deal.

Canada opens, with limits

The Wealthsimple launch shows how Kalshi grows revenue without waiting for an IPO. Wealthsimple introduced Wealthsimple Predict on 18 June, hours before Canada's World Cup match against Qatar, offering nearly 4,000 Kalshi-based event contracts through a standalone app set for a wider summer rollout. The access is real but narrow. In March, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) authorized Wealthsimple to offer contracts with settlement periods of 30 days or longer, limited to financial markets, climate and economic indicators. Sports and election contracts are prohibited under local rules, and the app will not list markets tied to violence, terrorism or death. Wealthsimple is the second dealer cleared by CIRO, behind Interactive Brokers in 2025.

"Prediction markets are the fastest-growing segment of global financial markets, letting traders turn an opinion into a position on the factors that shape our world," said Brett Huneycutt, co-founder and chief product officer at Wealthsimple. "Until now, Canadians have had limited access. Wealthsimple Predict gives Canadians a clean, well-designed way to access these markets." Through its expansion, Kalshi now reaches users in 140 countries, all of it built on its CFTC registration in the US.

For affiliates and B2B operators, the structure of the Canada deal is the signal worth reading. Kalshi did not enter Canada as a licensed gambling operator. It plugged into a regulated investment dealer and let a securities regulator, not a gaming one, define the product. That keeps the highest-volume verticals, sports and elections, off the table in Canada, the opposite of the US fight where Kalshi argues federal commodities law preempts state gambling enforcement. For partners the rule is jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction: where a regulator treats these as derivatives, sports markets may be barred even as the brand expands. The same week the DraftKings and FanDuel cohort keeps testing US lines, the cross-border map is fragmenting along securities-versus-gaming lines.

The risk side showed up in the same period. A Polymarket trader staked $999,068 on Spain to beat Cape Verde at the World Cup, a position that would have paid $1.09 million, then lost it all when Cape Verde, ranked 67th in the world, held the European champions to a 0-0 draw. A trader called "fishalive" won $4.7 million on a $400,000 stake on the other side of that result, at pre-match odds of 9%. Another user, "flickraw," put $2.7 million on the Netherlands to beat Japan, watched a Japanese equalizer in the 88th minute force a 2-2 draw, then lost a further $1.5 million on Belgium against Egypt to a 66th-minute own goal. Those are the sports markets Canada will not allow and the ones US courts are still arguing over.

Kalshi was founded in 2018. A 2028 listing would put it close to the roughly 12-year private-to-public timeline VanEck cites for venture-backed tech, up from about five years in the 1980s. With an estimated $6 trillion in unicorn value still sitting in private markets, the company has no structural reason to rush. The next markers to watch are a formal bank mandate, sustained institutional volume above the $178 billion annualized line, and whether US courts settle the sports question before Kalshi files.