If you want to place a bet on whether Jesus Christ will return in 2025, or whether Pierre Poilievre will be replaced as Tory leader, there is a market for you: Polymarket.
Since its launch in 2020, this online prediction market has enabled users to place billions of dollars worth of bets on world events.
Despite being widely used to bet on Canadian events, Canada has so far been slow to launch a comprehensive regulatory response. Ontario is the only province to have taken action — and its response was to ban trading on Polymarket altogether.
Michael Bacina, a lawyer who specializes in digital assets, says the challenge is that Polymarket offers something that is neither a traditional security nor a traditional gambling product.
“The law doesn’t fit the technology,” he said.
‘Markets seek truth’
Prediction markets rose to prominence ahead of the U.K.’s Brexit vote in 2016. Prediction markets put the U.K.’s odds of leaving the EU higher than traditional survey data.
Prediction markets turn predictions about world events into tradeable contracts. Polymarket says it is one of the world’s biggest prediction markets, facilitating $1.16 billion in monthly trades volume in June.
A number of the contracts traded on Polymarket are for distinctly Canadian phenomena.
One current market is called, “Will Alberta vote for independence in 2025?” The “Yes” contract is trading about $0.03, implying markets put the odds of such an outcome at roughly three per cent. If a user purchased this contract for $0.03 and Alberta did vote for independence this year, they would receive $1.
As of Aug. 8, $241,000 has been bet on this contract.
Bacina notes that Polymarket functions more like a stock exchange than a casino. It facilitates interactions between individual bettors, rather than between a gambler and a “house.”
“Polymarket just takes a transaction fee from the bets on their website proposed by users,” he said. “[It is] much like someone meeting someone else and placing a private bet, but with a computer enforcing the outcome.”
Polymarket says its market enables users to “stay informed and profit from [their] knowledge.”
“Studies show prediction markets are often more accurate than pundits because they combine news, polls, and expert opinions into a single value that represents the market’s view of an event’s odds,” the company’s website says.
“Our markets reflect accurate, unbiased, and real-time probabilities for the events that matter most to you. Markets seek truth.”
Polymarket did not respond to requests for comment.
Binary option ban
To date, Polymarket’s regulatory fate has hinged on how jurisdictions treat binary options — financial contracts where individuals either win a fixed payout or lose their entire stake.
“[Outcomes are] very black and white,” said Matthew Burgoyne, a partner at Osler LLP in Calgary and a chair of the firm’s digital assets and blockchain practice.
“Either you win or you lose.”
In Canada, binary options are prohibited for retail investors.
“It’s illegal to … sell or trade binary options shorter than 30 days with any individual in Canada,” said Burgoyne.
“These prediction markets like Polymarket really do seem to fit that definition of a binary option, because there’s typically a short time period, and there’s a binary outcome.”
The prohibition on binary options is the result of a 2017 decision by the Canadian Securities Administrators, an umbrella organization of provincial securities regulators. It held that unregulated access to binary options posed a high risk of fraud to Canadian investors.
The CSA found that with binary option trading, “In many instances … no actual trading occurs and the transaction takes place for the sole purpose of stealing money. In addition, those who have provided credit or personal information to binary options sites frequently fall victim to identity theft,” the Canadian Securities Administrators said at the time.
Burgoyne says the fraud concerns have merit.
“ In Canada, investors are subject to fraud constantly,” he said. “And binary options have been a very popular way for fraudsters to defraud Canadian investors, very specifically.”
Burgoyne adds that even on markets with relatively high levels of corporate legitimacy, questions of investor protection, fairness and transparency remain.
“You … think, ‘Oh, there’s a 50 per cent chance that I’m going to win.’ But actually not many people win.”
“I would argue that even on a legitimate binary [options] market like Polymarket, it would be really interesting to see how many people actually are successful.”
Ontario’s action
The Ontario Securities Commission, Ontario’s securities regulator, is so far the only provincial regulator to have taken action against Polymarket.
In April 2025, it announced a settlement with two companies that facilitate Polymarket’s digital processes, after Polymarket admitted to violating Canada’s binary options ban by offering these prohibited contracts to Ontario residents. Under the settlement, the companies were required to pay $200,000 in penalties.
Ontario is currently listed in Polymarket’s terms of use as a prohibited jurisdiction, meaning Ontarians are technically not permitted to use the platform.
But Toronto-based crypto consultant and non-practicing lawyer Jacob Robinson says determined users may still access Polymarket by using a Virtual Private Network.
“If someone’s willing to go through … a VPN … to the site, there’s [only] so much geoblocking that you can do to protect them.”
Nothing stops someone in Ottawa from accessing the site using a VPN to hide their true location and make it appear as though they are in Edmonton, Zurich or Hong Kong, for example.
Robinson says Canada’s approach of effectively prohibiting prediction markets outright is paternalistic.
“I’d argue that [regulators] are doing a disservice to people in Canada, in Ontario,” he said.
In the U.S., Polymarket is taking steps to be regulated under securities law. Polymarket also makes extensive use of blockchain, allowing funds to be deposited in the platform using cryptocurrency.
With the recent passage of the Genius Act, the U.S.’s regulatory environment is evolving to incorporate the use of cryptocurrency and make the country a leader in digital finance.
Robinson would prefer to see Canada do something similar.
“Rather than do the hard thing — which is work with these companies to create solutions that are win-win — they just take the easier route, which is to block them,” said Robinson.
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