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ASIC has no applicants
Sarah Court, chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday that no prediction-market operator has sought permission to operate in Australia. No platform has applied through the country's financial services licensing regime.
Court said an application would let ASIC assess whether a platform was suitable, but warned that approval would be difficult to secure. Without a licence, these businesses are more likely to come under gambling rules than financial regulation.
Licensing differs across markets
The business is growing elsewhere. FM Intelligence calculated taker volume for Polymarket, Kalshi and Polymarket's US venue at $172.4 billion in the third quarter, compared with $98.5 billion in the second. IG Group agreed in July to buy Underdog, a US sports and prediction-markets operator, for an upfront enterprise value of about $1.1 billion.
Australia's consumer guidance offers a warning about the local regulatory test. In August, ASIC's Moneysmart site said no prediction market held a financial-market licence in the country and likened event contracts to binary options.
ASIC banned binary options for retail clients in 2021, extending the prohibition to October 2031 after a review found losses among around 75% of retail clients. ACMA blocked Polymarket in August 2025, finding it provided a prohibited gambling service under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001.
- In the US, event contracts trade on exchanges overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Plus500 clears Kalshi contracts for US retail clients, while New York ordered Kalshi to stop sports contracts it classified as unlicensed wagering.
- In July, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said event contracts may be caught by the retail binary options ban regardless of their label. Selling them requires MiFID II authorisation.
- IG applied to Britain's Gambling Commission for a licence of the kind held by Spreadex. It plans to offer politics, entertainment and sports markets from early 2027.
The integration question
The Australian position leaves product classification unresolved for firms considering local access. Finance Magnates reported Court's hearing update. Operators will need to establish whether ASIC would treat a proposed contract as a financial product, what material an application must provide, and which licence or gambling framework applies. The hearing account does not answer those questions.
Any broker assessing offshore distribution should check how its customer disclosures and support processes address dispute handling and client money. ASIC says Australians using offshore venues lack access to dispute resolution and client-money safeguards. The account does not specify the controls offered by individual providers, so those need to be checked at venue and distribution level.
