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Apex Fintech Solutions just made it a lot easier for brokers to sell prediction market contracts. The company launched an API-based service that lets brokers and fintech firms plug Kalshi’s event contracts directly into their existing trading platforms — no separate exchange connection required, no need to build out their own futures commission merchant infrastructure from scratch.
Tastytrade went first. The platform, owned by IG Group, is already live with the integration, giving its customers access to CFTC-regulated event contracts right inside their normal trading interface — sitting right next to stocks and options like it’s always been there. Pretty much no friction for the end user.
How the Apex-Kalshi Integration Actually Works
The backend here is Apex’s AscendOS APIs. Brokers connect through those, and Kalshi’s marketplace shows up on their platform without each firm having to negotiate direct exchange connectivity or stand up their own clearing infrastructure. Apex handles the heavy lifting — account support, backend connectivity, the operational plumbing that makes regulated derivatives work at scale. Brokers still have to decide how they present the product and who’s eligible to trade it. That part stays with them.
Event contracts are regulated derivatives. That matters. It means brokers can’t just flip a switch and start offering them the way they might add a new stock screener. There are compliance layers, eligibility checks, customer disclosures. Apex absorbs a big chunk of that operational burden, which is probably the main reason a firm like tastytrade moved quickly on this.
The unified view is genuinely useful for retail traders. Instead of downloading a separate prediction market app and managing another account, a customer can just see their event contract positions alongside their equity positions. Same interface, same login. That’s a real simplification, and it’s likely to drive more casual participation in event-based trading than anything a standalone platform could do on its own.
Tastytrade, IG Group, and the Bigger Picture
Tastytrade’s move isn’t happening in isolation. IG Group recently acquired Underdog, a U.S. fantasy sports and prediction-markets operator, in a deal valued at up to $1.3 billion. So IG is clearly betting hard on event-based trading as a category — and tastytrade’s early adoption of the Apex-Kalshi integration fits that strategy pretty cleanly. It’s not a one-off experiment. It looks more like a coordinated push.
Apex itself serves nearly 200 firms. That list includes Webull, eToro US, Stash, and Ally Invest. If even a fraction of those firms decide to add event contracts through this service, Kalshi gets distribution it couldn’t easily build on its own. Each direct broker integration is expensive and slow. Routing through Apex collapses that process significantly.
Kalshi is the only venue available through the service right now. Apex has said it may add more venues if demand warrants it. No timeline, no specific names. Unclear which other exchanges might be in the queue, or whether there’s already conversation happening. But the architecture is built to accommodate more than one venue — that’s probably intentional.
The $1 Trillion Projection and What It Means for Brokers
Bernstein put out a projection that prediction-market volumes could hit $1 trillion by 2030. Big number. It comes with a caveat — regulatory clarity is listed as a condition. That’s not a small caveat. The CFTC’s posture on event contracts has shifted over time, and what the regulatory environment looks like in four years is genuinely hard to predict.
But brokers don’t need to believe in the $1 trillion figure to see value here. If even a modest slice of retail traders want access to event contracts, and those traders are already on a platform like Webull or eToro, the marginal cost of offering the product through Apex’s infrastructure is low. The risk-reward math probably works for a lot of firms.
And the retail trading industry has been hunting for new products. Zero-commission equity trading compressed margins hard. Options helped. Crypto helped, then got complicated. Event contracts are regulated, they’re CFTC-supervised, and they carry a different kind of appeal — outcome-based, time-bound, easy to explain. A contract on whether the Fed cuts rates or whether unemployment hits a certain number is something a retail investor can actually form a view on.
Apex isn’t pitching this as a replacement for equities or options. It’s an add-on, another layer in the product stack. The firm’s clearing and custody infrastructure already supports a wide range of assets. Event contracts are the newest addition.
Tastytrade is live. The other 190-odd firms on Apex’s roster are watching.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Apex’s new API service actually do for brokers?
It lets brokers and fintech firms integrate Kalshi’s event contracts into their existing trading platforms without building their own FCM infrastructure or direct exchange connectivity — Apex handles the backend through its AscendOS APIs.
Which firm was first to use the Apex-Kalshi integration?
Tastytrade, owned by IG Group, was the first firm to go live with the service, offering CFTC-regulated event contracts alongside traditional assets like stocks and options.
