Meera Raman, Globe and Mail:

Wealthsimple is seeking to offer prediction trading in Canada, a controversial type of betting on real-world events that has surged in popularity in the past year, and has been largely banned in this country.

[…]

The approval for Ontario-based Wealthsimple permits it only to offer contracts tied to economic indicators, financial markets and climate trends, the company confirmed – not sports or elections, which are among the most popular uses of prediction markets in the United States.

Interactive Brokers launched here last April. Why are we doing this to ourselves?

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Nilay Patel and Liz Lopatto discussed “prediction markets” on the Verge’s “Decoder” podcast; here is Patel’s summary:

Insider trading is supposed to be illegal, and so is operating an unregulated sports book. So you’re now starting to see Kalshi and Polymarket getting hit from both sides of this broader regulatory debate, and 2026 is shaping up to be the year that all of this really comes to a head. To what end? It’s hard to say, especially as these companies cozy up to the Trump administration.

But it’s also becoming increasingly untenable for prediction markets to sit in the middle of the tension between gambling on the news and trying to self-regulate such that they don’t encourage insider trading.

A little under a month after Gallup announced it would stop polling for presidential approval, the Associated Press said it would begin integrating Kalshi bets into its election coverage. As Patel and Lopatto say, however, election betting is among the least problematic news gambling.

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