Charles Schwab, America’s largest discount brokerage, is considering entering prediction markets while nearing the launch of Bitcoin and Ethereum trading. Rick Wurster, President and CEO, highlighted a key difference between speculative bets on financial events versus those on pop culture or sports during their first-quarter earnings call.
“At some point, we will likely have prediction markets,” Wurster stated, emphasizing that these would be distinct from wagers on topics like Taylor Swift’s personal life. With $11.8 trillion in client assets under management, Schwab’s potential move into prediction markets reflects Wall Street giants’ growing interest in tech traditionally seen as niche or regulatory ambiguous. However, Wurster noted that such products are not currently high-priority for Schwab clients.
“They’re not at the top of our clients’ list,” he explained, citing low success rates among gamblers and general financial losses. As firms like Cboe Global Markets prepare to launch event contracts tied to financial occurrences, similar to platforms Polymarket and Kalshi, Nasdaq has also sought SEC approval for options on binary events.
“We will take a hard look at this,” Wurster commented, assuring that Schwab’s approach would avoid gambling. While prediction markets have become staple offerings for Robinhood and Coinbase via integrations with platforms like Kalshi, sports wagers comprised 78% of Kalshi’s $2.7 billion volume last week.
When asked about potential partnerships with Polymarket or Kalshi, a Schwab spokesperson told Decrypt that the firm has no additional information beyond Wurster’s remarks. Concurrently, Schwab announced plans to introduce Bitcoin and Ethereum trading shortly, promising industry-low fees of 0.75% per trade. The brokerage aims to expand its crypto services by incorporating features familiar to users of Robinhood and Coinbase, including depositing, withdrawing, and supporting a broader range of tokens.