Canadian Regulators Keep Sports and Entertainment Betting Out of Prediction Markets
CSA and CIRO confirm sports and entertainment event contracts stay banned, even as Wealthsimple pushes for looser rules on prediction markets.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited by the ON360 newsroom.
Canada’s top securities watchdogs have shut the door on prediction markets tied to sports and entertainment outcomes, at least for now. The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) issued a joint notice this week confirming that such event contracts remain off-limits to regulated dealers.
The notice acknowledged that event contracts “may fall within the broad definitions of securities or derivatives” under Canadian law, but said certain instruments still sit outside that framework. CSA staff stated plainly that contracts based on sports and entertainment events “should not be regulated within securities and derivatives legislation.” CIRO said it does not consider it appropriate for its dealer members to seek approval to trade them.
A narrower lane than the U.S. market
The update builds on a CIRO bulletin from March 26 that reminded members Canadian law already bars contracts tied to elections or political outcomes. For now, regulators say only economic, environmental or financial indicator contracts are permitted for trading. Other categories remain under review, with further guidance promised.
A separate rule complicates matters further. Short-term binary options, those maturing in under 30 days, cannot be sold to individual investors anywhere in Canada except British Columbia, which built its own framework that also excludes short-dated contracts. The CSA banned binary options nationally in 2017 over fraud and investor-protection concerns. That 30-day floor would block much of the rapid-fire sports and entertainment betting that has taken off in American prediction markets.
Only two platforms currently let Canadians trade real-world event contracts legally: Interactive Brokers’ IBKR Forecast Trader and Wealthsimple’s Predict. Questrade has said it wants to offer similar contracts but has not secured regulatory sign-off. STX, an exchange licensed in Ontario, is separately pursuing registration with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Wealthsimple pushes back
The guidance lands weeks after Wealthsimple published a white paper, “Prediction markets in Canada: a principled regulatory framework,” arguing Ottawa should loosen the rules to permit short-term binaries and reopen currently banned categories, including elections, entertainment and sports.
Wealthsimple’s paper pointed to fast-rising volume as its case. Combined monthly trading through Polymarket and Kalshi, the exchange Wealthsimple routes customer orders through, grew from under $5 billion in September 2025 to roughly $24 billion by April, according to the company. Gambling Insider reports that growth has continued since.
A CIRO spokesperson told Gambling Insider the sports and entertainment guidance responded directly to “interest in event contracts based on sports and entertainment events and outcomes.” The spokesperson also reiterated that Canadians cannot trade contracts tied to unlawful activity under federal, provincial or territorial law, alongside the existing ban on political and election contracts.
Why it matters here
Ontario’s regulated sportsbooks already offer wagering on games and events under provincial gambling law, overseen by the AGCO and iGaming Ontario. The CSA-CIRO guidance keeps that activity firmly separate from securities-style prediction markets, at least until regulators decide otherwise. Players wanting to bet on sports in Ontario still need to use AGCO-registered operators, which are required to provide deposit limits, self-exclusion and other responsible-gambling tools.
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