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CIRO reaches beyond order controls
The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) published new requirements on 16 October 2026 that reach beyond whether a client can place a trade. Brokers must also prevent clients from encountering event contracts that are not available to them.
Sports and entertainment contracts are expressly barred. Dealers must remove unavailable markets from searches, recommendations and promotional material, and cannot send clients to them through links to third-party sites.
CIRO says a listing could lead clients to believe a contract is authorised in Canada. Brokers connected to US prediction exchanges will therefore need to filter markets before they appear in Canadian interfaces.
Some outcome types remain eligible
Selected contracts linked to financial indicators, economic data and environmental measurements remain permissible. The outcome must be objectively determinable, for example by reference to an official statistic or a recognised market benchmark. The existing 30-day minimum maturity and ban on use continue to apply.
CIRO had said in August that sports and entertainment markets fell outside the securities-regulated products it had authorised dealers to offer. The new notice makes the prohibition explicit and applies it to how brokers present markets, not only to the order function.
Two dealers distribute contracts
Interactive Brokers Canada introduced event contracts in April 2025, becoming the first dealer authorised to offer them in the country. Its Forecast Contracts trade through ForecastEx, an exchange owned by Interactive Brokers and regulated by the CFTC. Wealthsimple later gained authorisation and offers selected Kalshi contracts in its separate Predict app, with Canadian availability limited to approved financial, economic and climate-related markets.
Wealthsimple's Predict page also shows example questions about an OpenAI IPO and a foldable Apple phone. Those examples are not necessarily tradable contracts, but the broker may need to review whether they can remain in Canadian-facing promotions. The requirements, as Finance Magnates reported, mean that each new market added by ForecastEx or Kalshi needs assessment before it enters a Canadian product feed.
What an operations team should check
Teams should check where eligibility rules are applied across the client journey: order entry, search, recommendations, marketing and outbound links. Do the controls remove a market from every Canadian-facing surface, including material that does not lead directly to a trade?
Before adding markets from ForecastEx or Kalshi, operators should establish how each contract is assessed against CIRO's permitted categories and how that decision reaches the Canadian feed. Which team owns the review, and how will it confirm that a newly added or changed contract is not displayed before approval?
