Prediction markets

Prediction markets platform

Event contracts went from under $5 billion a month in September 2025 to about $24 billion in April 2026 on Kalshi and Polymarket alone. Regulators have started answering. This is the platform for operators who want to run one under a licence rather than around it.

Discuss a prediction market build Gibraltar authorisation

Where the regulation is, September 2026

Three answers exist. In the United States the CFTC dropped its appeal against Kalshi's election contracts in May 2025, issued a no-action letter to Polymarket's QCX in September 2025, and Robinhood put a prediction hub in front of retail in March 2025. Then the courts split: the Third Circuit ruled on 6 April 2026 that sports event contracts are swaps and New Jersey is preempted; the Ninth Circuit ruled on 28 August 2026 that they are not and Nevada may regulate them. Certiorari petitions were filed in September 2026. In the EU, ESMA said on 3 July 2026 that event contracts on MiFID underlyings are derivatives, and France ordered Polymarket blocked on 16 July 2026; sports and political markets fall under gambling law state by state. In the UK, financial-event contracts are binary options banned for retail since 2019, with the FCA reported to be weighing an easing in September 2026, and sports or political markets need a UKGC licence.

Gibraltar wrote the fourth answer. Its Prediction Market Regulations 2026 took effect on 13 July 2026, creating a dedicated authorisation with stablecoin settlement allowed in the text, £30,000 to apply and £100,000 a year. Two operators were already through the door. Malta was still at proposal stage in August 2026. Our platform was designed against the Gibraltar regulations' list of what an operator does; the licence page has the detail.

What the platform is

  • Market engine. Central limit order book with maker and taker fees, the model Kalshi and Polymarket use; an automated market maker (LMSR-style) for long-tail markets where you subsidise liquidity; and parimutuel pools where the licence treats the product as pool betting. Per-market choice.
  • Contract lifecycle. Draft, legal review, certification status, listing, trading, halt, resolution, settlement, dispute. Gibraltar's regulation 12 requires every contract to be approved or certified; the workflow records who approved what and when. Restricted subjects (crime, death, terrorism, war) are blocked at drafting.
  • Resolution. Manual resolution with four-eyes approval, data-feed resolution for sports and financial outcomes, or an optimistic-oracle model on the Polymarket pattern: a proposer posts a bond, a challenge window runs, disputes escalate to a vote. We support UMA-style flows for on-chain markets and replicate the bond-and-challenge logic off-chain for licensed ones.
  • Settlement. Fiat through the gateway, stablecoin on-chain or in ledger, with client-money segregation reporting.
  • Surveillance. Wash-trade and self-match detection, position limits per market and per participant, insider flags on markets with identifiable insiders, suspicious-activity reporting.
  • Wind-down. A regulator-readable recovery and wind-down plan (Gibraltar regulation 20) with the platform's actual procedures for halting, settling open positions and returning funds.

What we will not build

A platform designed to be unlicensed. Polymarket International ran $9 billion in April 2026 without one, and Polymarket has been blocked in France and elsewhere for it. Our clients are operators who want the volume that is moving toward regulated venues: ICE invested up to $2 billion in Polymarket in October 2025 on that thesis, and Gibraltar licensed the first European operator six months later.

Frequently asked

Order book or AMM?

Order book for markets with real two-sided interest; AMM for the long tail where nobody will quote. Most operators run both and let the market's liquidity decide.

Can users create markets?

Technically yes. Under a licence, every market still needs approval or certification before listing, so "user-created" means "user-proposed" with a review queue. Plan the review capacity before the marketing.

Sports markets too?

Yes, and in most places they are betting under gambling law regardless of the contract form. The sportsbook and the prediction market share the wallet and the account.