Canadian regulators reminded the public on Thursday about the strict limits on event contract trading north of the border, as the prediction markets issue continues to dominate the gaming industry conversation in the U.S. and boils over in the broader public consciousness.
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) issued a joint press release on April 2 that stressed that barely any companies are licensed to offer prediction markets in Canada right now. The authorities suggested they are willing to take enforcement action against anyone offering unapproved trading in Canada.
The regulators said they were posting the notice “given the growing interest in prediction markets in Canada.”
“Anyone trading, or facilitating trading, in event contracts which are securities or derivatives must follow applicable requirements under securities or derivatives legislation, such as registration or recognition requirements,” stated the release.
“Failure to comply with applicable requirements under Canadian securities and derivatives laws may lead to enforcement action.”
Poly want a cracker?
The CSA and CIRO noted that a particular rule in place in the entirety of Canada (except British Columbia) prohibits anyone from offering, selling, trading or advertising any binary yes/no contracts that resolve within less than 30 days.
That would include the majority of the kind of sports contracts now littering the U.S. market on nationwide platforms such as Polymarket, Kalshi, and Crypto.com. In some states, sports contracts are also offered by various sportsbooks’ new prediction market platforms, such as FanDuel Predicts and DraftKings Predictions.
One of the jurisdictions that the CSA/CIRO release references is Ontario, where the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) prohibits those short-term binary options. The OSC, which is a member of the CSA, banned Polymarket for two years in 2025 through a settlement that was reached after the company admitted that it violated the province’s rules.
As such, Polymarket is not allowed to operate or advertise in Ontario. However, the Globe and Mail reported on Thursday that Polymarket promotional materials were being handed out outside Toronto’s Rogers Centre in recent days before Blue Jays games, complete with sign-up offers.
Incidentally, Polymarket is now an official partner of Major League Baseball, and it is reputedly widely available in the rest of Canada.
Regulators look to future-proof against predictions
There is an exemption to the ban on short-term binary contracts for CIRO’s approved members, pending regulatory approvals. CIRO and the CSA stressed in their statement what they had confirmed in a bulletin just a few days earlier: As of right now, only two CIRO members have been authorized to offer Canadian access to event contracts.
Even those two firms in question, Interactive Brokers Canada and now also Wealthsimple, can only offer a limited set of event contracts that are traded and cleared through certain U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated exchanges and clearinghouses. In the bulletin, CIRO’s terms and conditions stated that only contracts involving “economic forecasts,” “environment forecasts” or “financial indicators” are allowed, and only if they take longer than 30 days to resolve.
Other companies such as Questrade have been reported recently as being interested in offering prediction markets.
However, the regulators’ press release stressed that while approved CIRO members may facilitate Canadian client access to event contracts that are traded on non-Canadian markets, “to date, no prediction market has been recognized as an exchange or registered as a dealer” by the CSA.
“The CSA and CIRO continue to monitor developments involving prediction markets and event contracts and intend to issue further guidance on how securities or derivatives legislation applies to them,” concluded the regulators. “Due to regulators’ ongoing concerns around prediction markets, the CSA and CIRO will also consider whether other regulatory action is required, including changes to the terms and conditions in the above-mentioned CIRO bulletin.”
You had my curiosity; now, you have my attention
For now, Canada’s stance on prediction markets remains the same, and much less accommodating than the U.S., where the Donald Trump administration is not only allowing companies like Kalshi (which says it blocks Canadian access) but even going to bat for them in federal court.
But the events of this week are hard to ignore. With Wealthsimple’s approval for limited event contracts and Questrade’s interest, and now the regulators evidently feeling they need to make their voices heard, we may start hearing a lot more about prediction markets in Canada.
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