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IG Group applied for a UK gambling licence on 22 October 2026 to offer prediction markets covering politics, entertainment and sports. The company expects those markets to open in early 2027, following financial-event contracts for UK professional clients in the fourth quarter.
The application is pending, and the regulatory route differs by contract type. The UK rules put financial outcomes under the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), while the Gambling Commission oversees betting on real-world events such as sport and politics.
How IG plans to enter betting
IG View Limited, an IG subsidiary based in London, is the applicant. The Gambling Commission register records a pending application for a remote general betting licence for real events under the trading name "ig prediction markets". No licence has been issued.
For retail investors, the FCA has prohibited binary options since 2019, a classification that applies to contracts on financial outcomes. The separate treatment of other event contracts helps explain IG's planned sequence: financial-event contracts first for professional clients, followed by its wider prediction-market launch.
US activity has expanded sharply. FM Intelligence calculated that taker volume on Kalshi and Polymarket rose to $172.4 billion in the third quarter from $98.5 billion in the second. Neither platform is listed on the UK register. CMC Markets and Plus500, IG's UK-listed competitors, are absent too. No prediction market has a licence in the European Union, while Gibraltar issued its first in April.
Revenue and client activity diverge
IG's push back into betting follows its July agreement to acquire Underdog, a US fantasy sports and prediction-markets operator, for up to about $1.3 billion. Completion is expected in late 2026 or early 2027.
Chief Executive Breon Corcoran said trading, investing and entertainment were converging. He previously led Paddy Power Betfair until January 2018 and was chief executive of Betfair.
IG left gambling in 2011, selling the customer base of its Extrabet betting arm to Spreadex. Spreadex and Sporting Index hold general betting licences of the kind IG has applied for. Betfair, Smarkets and Matchbook have betting intermediary licences, a category the Gambling Commission said in February appeared to cover prediction markets. The application was first reported by Finance Magnates.
The same company update showed Freetrade's third-quarter net trading revenue down 67% year on year to £2.2 million from £6.7 million. Monthly active customers fell 1% to 454,700.
That equates to about £4.84 of quarterly revenue per active customer, compared with £14.57 a year earlier, according to FinanceMagnates.com's calculation. Freetrade, which IG agreed to acquire for £160 million, recorded a £24.4 million pre-tax loss for 2025, its first year under IG.
IG attributed lower stock trading revenue to weaker markets, concerns about technology and AI valuations, and caution before possible capital gains tax changes in the coming UK Budget. Its UK and Ireland investing customer base rose 30% year on year to 78,100. IG said its combined trading, investing and crypto app is live in the UK and will roll out to its other markets next.
Group revenue fell 14% year on year to £240.5 million in the third quarter, matching the estimate IG issued on 2 October. Revenue from client fees and commissions on over-the-counter derivatives, including contracts for difference and spread bets, rose about 8%, but net revenue from those products fell 18% to £156.1 million.
IG's return to volume, the proportion of that income retained as net trading revenue, was 70%, below an average of about 80% since the second half of 2025. The company expects the figure to be structurally higher over time.
What to watch next
IG left its 2026 outlook intact, forecasting revenue growth in the mid-single digits. It also expects to resume buying back shares in 2027.
The holding company is due to move to Jersey in late 2026 or early 2027. The firm has not detailed how the proposed event contracts will connect to its trading, client-accounting or reporting systems.
For operations teams, the outstanding questions are how financial-event contracts will be classified and reported separately from gambling products, and what controls will apply when the sports and politics markets launch. The application is still pending, so what permissions will be granted, and what operational requirements will attach to them, remain open questions.
