Interactive Brokers’ Thomas Peterffy on Prediction Markets, Best Execution and AI
📅 May 27, 2026ADVISORHUB19 MIN16 VIEWS39 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
This week, AdvisorHub’s CEO, Tony Sirianni talks Interactive Brokers’ Founder and Chairman Thomas Peterffy. The two discuss having an international presence, working with digital currencies and prediction markets, how AI is becoming increasingly prevalent, making investments with less emotion and more reasoning, and how better advisor performance garners more clients.
What Thomas Peterffy said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Thomas Peterffy, founder and chairman of Interactive Brokers, discussed his immigrant background and the firm's global reach, noting it transacts in 170 markets and 29 currencies. He explained that advisors can trade digital assets on the platform and that the firm was first in prediction markets a decade ago, though it later slackened and is now returning. Peterffy emphasized the importance of prediction markets for gauging consensus on critical questions like AI adoption and universal basic income, and noted legal disputes between states and platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. He argued AI will rapidly change daily life and that investors should use reasoning over emotion. He highlighted that advisors on Interactive Brokers outperformed the S&P 500 by 267% over three years, attributing this to best execution practices, market rates on idle cash, and access to global markets. He also discussed the firm's model portfolio system for advisors and the importance of investing in AI companies.
Key takeaways
Advisors on Interactive Brokers outperformed the S&P 500 by 267% over the last three years.
Interactive Brokers transacts in 170 markets and 29 currencies globally.
Peterffy said AI adoption will be very fast, changing daily life substantially and soon.
Interactive Brokers was first in prediction markets 10 years ago and is now returning to them.
Peterffy said advisors should be invested in AI companies.
Numbers and commitments
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What it refers to
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267%
Advisor outperformance vs S&P 500 over three years
Welcome everyone to another edition of the Tony Serriani podcast. I am thrilled to have my friend Thomas Peterffy who is the founder and the chairman of Interactive Brokers with us today. Thanks for being here.
Well, you're welcome. So, I mean we don't have a ton of time. I know there's a lot we want to talk about, but I think your story is a fascinating one. I think advisors would love to hear how you got to this country and you know sort of what was the opportunity you saw that made you start Interactive Brokers.
So I grew up in Hungary and it was a socialist country and I was very lucky to have been able to get out of there when I was 20 years old and came to America and became a computer programmer and then I went to work on Wall Street and from there it was apparent that Wall Street needed to be computerized. Surprised and that's what I did.
Yeah. Yeah. I will tell you Budapest is a beautiful city. I don't know if you've been there recently. So, we had a really stayed at the Gresham Palace which is a lot of fun. Good good place.
Well, you know, it's funny there are still leftovers. You know, we had a driver took us around and you know, socialism is one of those things that can linger in a place and those guys, you know, they're frustrated with it, too. So you were lucky to get here but it was our gain that we have you in this country. So you started working with computers and really bringing technology to our business in a way it really hadn't been before. So you've really been an innovator. So we thank you for that. When you look at you also coming from another country one of the things I think that distinguishes Interactive Brokers is its international presence your ability to do international business that kind of thing. Did that come naturally to you and you wanted to keep that going because a lot of people don't do it because it's
Yeah. So, myself being an immigrant, I specialized in hiring immigrants because I knew that they were hungrier and generally I was looking for engineers and education in engineering is usually I would say better in many other countries than in the United States. So I was able to hire a lot of immigrants and then it came naturally to us to expand worldwide globally so that we currently have Interactive Brokers has 170 markets and 29 currencies in which we transact and so we're a very global firm today.
And not only global but you've sort of remained I think you're an innovator with using technology in the beginning but today you are too. You're on the cutting edge with cryptocurrencies and digital assets. So talk a little bit about that where you see that I mean because it's anxiety producing to some advisors all the digital stuff but certainly there's demand out there for it you know tell us your thinking around that.
Yeah. So, advisors want to allocate a percentage of client portfolios to cryptocurrencies and they can trade digital assets alongside with other products on our platform. Yes.
Prediction markets. That's prediction markets. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about that a little bit. What made you decide to get into that part of the business?
So well you see it's you know in this age of AI I think it is incredibly important there is so much uncertainty it is incredibly important to have prediction markets where people can see what is the consensus opinion of very crucial questions such as the rate of adoption of AI such as what will be the labor participation rate in the coming decades as we evolve? What will be will we implement universal basic income right because you know if the labor participation rate goes under 50% what will most people live on then right it's serious questions and what will be taxation rates in order to be able to support that so these are absolutely crucial questions and to have prediction markets in which experts express their opinion and you can always see the consensus as the opinions change about every detail of these larger questions. It is extremely important in my mind that there'll be a place where people can go to find answers to these questions.
And you know regulations around that. I mean obviously you're compliant regulatory but where do you see them taking a more active interest or is that possibly changing?
20 more exchanges in this transcript
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Peterffy, T. (2026, May 27). Interactive Brokers’ Thomas Peterffy on Prediction Markets, Best Execution and AI [Interview transcript]. ADVISORHUB. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/951723/
MLA
Thomas Peterffy. "Interactive Brokers’ Thomas Peterffy on Prediction Markets, Best Execution and AI." ADVISORHUB, 27 May. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/951723/.
BibTeX
@misc{peterffy2026_951723,
author = {Thomas Peterffy},
title = {Interactive Brokers’ Thomas Peterffy on Prediction Markets, Best Execution and AI},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, ADVISORHUB. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {may},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/951723/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
