Gibraltar Clears ADI Predictstreet for Political Markets

Gibraltar’s gambling regulator has cleared ADI Predictstreet, the official prediction-market partner of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, to expand beyond football into a much wider set of markets — including trading on “selected political events,” the most contested corner of the business and one that has entangled rivals Polymarket and Kalshi in insider-trading concerns and state legal challenges.

The company said on July 2, 2026 that it had completed the initial phase of its Gibraltar regulatory framework and secured permission to broaden its product. Once the tournament ends, it plans to introduce markets progressively across other sports, entertainment, culture, weather and politics. Chief executive Dimitrios Psarrakis cast the approval as proof that the platform’s compliance record — covering operational resilience, consumer protection and market integrity — can support a wider range of events.

The phrase “selected political events” is the notable part. Political trading is exactly the territory that has made prediction markets contentious: Polymarket drew scrutiny over wagers tied to US military action in Venezuela and Iran, amid concerns about traders acting on inside information, and Kalshi has stepped back from political contracts even as it fights US states that treat its event trading as illegal gambling. ADI Predictstreet is proposing to move into that space with a European gambling licence behind it.

A regulated home for a contested product

Gibraltar approved the expansion through its Gambling Commissioner, the same authority that made the territory the first European jurisdiction to license a prediction market. The company, an Abu Dhabi-backed operator built on the ADI Chain blockchain, first secured Gibraltar approval earlier in 2026, becoming the first prediction market on the territory’s register of betting intermediaries, and days later was named FIFA’s first-ever partner in the prediction-market category for the 2026 World Cup.

That licence type matters. Unlike the financial-instrument framing that Kalshi and Polymarket rely on in the United States, Gibraltar treats prediction markets as gambling. ADI Predictstreet holds a betting-intermediary licence — the same category Gibraltar uses for betting exchanges — which carries anti-money-laundering and consumer-protection obligations. That is a label the US operators have resisted, because being called a bookmaker would undercut their argument that their event contracts are financial products, not bets.

For Gibraltar, the motive is commercial. Gambling accounts for roughly a quarter of the territory’s economy, and most of its licensees depend on the UK, where a higher remote-gaming tax took effect in 2026. Licensing a fast-growing new vertical is one way to offset that squeeze — much as other jurisdictions are courting international operators to grow licensing revenue. Minister for Justice, Trade and Industry Nigel Feetham said in the announcement that the approval showed how “forward-looking regulation can create entirely new markets, attract world-class businesses and reinforce Gibraltar’s position as one of the world’s leading regulatory jurisdictions.”

Gibraltar has since granted an approval in principle to a second prediction-market operator, WagerWire, signalling that it wants to build a sector rather than license a single name. But the architect of that stance, Gambling Commissioner Andrew Lyman, is leaving after six years, and the government is recruiting a successor. Whether the next commissioner is as willing to license a vertical most of Europe is trying to block is an open question for operators weighing Gibraltar as a base.

Out of step with the rest of Europe

Gibraltar’s openness is the exception on the continent. In June 2026, nine European regulators issued a joint warning about prediction markets, citing weak player safeguards, the risk of market manipulation and disputes over how contracts settle. France, Portugal, the Netherlands and others have moved to block Polymarket and Kalshi outright, part of a wider European tightening that has also seen Spain cap online deposits across every operator a player uses.

ADI Predictstreet has already felt that resistance. Germany’s federal gambling regulator, the GGL, opened a formal review of the company’s prominent World Cup advertising — its branding ran on pitch-side boards during broadcasts — on the grounds that it holds no German licence. The platform has since blocked access for users in Germany.

None of that has slowed the company’s dealmaking. It reaches US users through Fanatics and the UK through the betting exchange Matchbook, and in late June 2026 it added a strategic partnership with Kalshi, which will co-brand around the tournament and help the platform scale internationally. The contradiction is hard to miss: Kalshi, which fights the gambling label at home, is now tied to a platform whose entire European standing rests on a gambling licence. It also reflects a broader push of Gulf capital into regulated betting, as the UAE builds out its own licensed gambling market.

The political-markets plan will test how far Gibraltar’s model can travel. A betting-intermediary licence makes ADI Predictstreet legal on the Rock, but it does not settle the harder question its rivals keep hitting: whether a market that lets people trade on elections and world events is a financial exchange, a bookmaker, or something regulators still have not agreed on.