Thomas Peterffy, founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers, joins CNBC's 'Halftime Report' to debate the surge in popularity of prediction markets and what it may mean for investors.
Questions asked in this interview
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0:22I don't think how much of an appetite do we really think there is for that?
I am sure there will be a lot of people taking these prediction market bets. Most of them, the more they play, will lose money. This is not the same as investing in the stock market. If I buy a stock and I'm wrong in the first three weeks of buying it, it doesn't go to zero. I just have to hold it longer. It becomes a trade that becomes an investment. If you're wrong on a prediction, it's zero.
All right. Well, that was our Josh Brown. A couple of weeks ago, as we debated prediction markets and how more and more companies are racing to get into that game, our next guest, he saw the conversation live. He reached out to profess his profound disagreement with some of the points that were made. We invited him on and he accepted. And he's Thomas Peterffy. He's the founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers and he joins us now. So, we're grateful that you watched and certainly that you reached out and even more so that you were willing to come on and have this conversation. Welcome.
Yes. Thank you very much for having me. So about 10 years ago, I came up with the idea of asking yes or no questions and a $1 payoff about simple questions, so that the probability is equal to the probability that the answer will be yes or no. And this was an attempt to teach Interactive Brokers customers about the probabilistic nature of the future. Now I admit that some people picked up on this idea and they come up with questions about the romantic life of celebrities and other frivolous questions. But basically, the idea was to focus on economic and climate indicators, which are very serious questions, as you on your show frequently debate the question of economic indicators that explain how the economy has worked up to now or in the past, but not in the future. So if you want to look at the future, these kinds of questions are very good at getting the consensus opinion, and they can serve as a hedging mechanism. And you know, the fact that some of the answers can go to zero, sure, just like options can go to zero, that doesn't mean that stock options or index options are not good trading vehicles and good investments, right.
I think it's worth a disclosure too that Interactive Brokers has also expanded into prediction markets a couple years ago, so you obviously see the business sense in doing so. And I'm not necessarily sure that you and Josh disagree on the key point. I think that some of the original ideas behind these have been somewhat corrupted. I'm going to invite Josh into the conversation and let him make whatever points he'd like to, and then you guys can hash this out.
Thomas, thank you. So, thank you so much for joining us. I'm a big fan of what you've built at Interactive Brokers. Congratulations on all your success. I'm also a bull on your stock. So, hopefully that buys me a little bit of latitude to say this. Would you agree with me? Just because there's the presence of things like zero-day-to-expiration options and that they can be used well, that doesn't mean the majority of the people who are in that market are making money from it. You would agree with that premise, right?
According to the CBOE on options, which you're comparing to, 10% of options are exercised, 55 to 60% are closed before expiration, and about 30 to 35% of options expire worthless. That's okay. People can make money and lose money. I have no issue with that. I think my broader point was how big will the market really be for people who want to place bets on climate change, for example, or whether or not Martin Scorsese will win an Oscar or whatever the bet is. My point was that's not going to be larger than the stock market anytime soon, maybe ever. That's trying to draw the distinction between a place to place bets, which is fine and valid, versus a place to invest.
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Peterffy, T. (2026, January 8). Interactive Brokers' Thomas Peterffy joins the prediction market debate [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/627528/
MLA
Thomas Peterffy. "Interactive Brokers' Thomas Peterffy joins the prediction market debate." CNBC Television, 8 Jan. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/627528/.
BibTeX
@misc{peterffy2026_627528,
author = {Thomas Peterffy},
title = {Interactive Brokers' Thomas Peterffy joins the prediction market debate},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jan},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/627528/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
