The World Cup is approaching, and the prediction market faces a major test

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Author: Zen, PANews

In the past few years, prediction market platforms centered around Polymarket and Kalshi have turned political, macroeconomic, crypto, entertainment, and sports events into tradable markets, allowing users to express probability judgments and earn profits through buying and selling event outcomes. Especially after entering the sports sector, the trading volume of these platforms has seen significant and sustained growth, becoming a pillar of their revenue structure.

This year, a major sports year, the 2026 World Cup jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with an expanded 48-team format for the first time, will be the largest public stress test faced by sports prediction markets to date. It compresses sports competitions, cross-border event organization, betting ecosystems, and global user traffic into a single market scenario, significantly amplifying risk dimensions and external attention.

In such densely packed, globalized, cross-jurisdictional sports events, once insiders connect with tradable prediction markets, any information gaps regarding injuries, starting lineups, referees, or even internal governance could be rapidly converted into price advantages.

In this sense, the 2026 World Cup is not only an opportunity for prediction markets to compete for sports traffic but also an open exam on whether they can maintain sports integrity.

From Obscurity to the World Cup Frontstage, FIFA’s Prediction Market Partner Faces Multiple Doubts

In April this year, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) announced its official prediction market partner for the 2026 World Cup. Unexpectedly, the announced brand was neither Polymarket nor Kalshi, but a little-known platform—ADI Predictstreet.

Just as people wondered who ADI Predictstreet was, this company, placed at the center of the world’s largest sports event, began to face doubts due to its senior management’s negative history, licensing speed, and immature products.

The first controversy surrounding Predictstreet concerns the integrity of its executives. When ADI Predictstreet was announced as FIFA’s betting partner, its chief board member Ajay Bhatia appeared on stage representing the company. He took a photo with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, both holding a jersey with the ADI Predictstreet logo on the back.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino (left) and Ajay Bhatia (right)

Bhatia is the CEO and General Manager of QuantLase Lab, a subsidiary of IHC (International Holding Company), which is led by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family and the UAE Vice President. On the other hand, ADI Predictstreet belongs to Finstreet, which is a subsidiary of Sirius International Holding, itself also under IHC.

According to Norwegian football news outlet Josimar, Bhatia was embroiled in an insider trading scandal in 2025. He was accused of pre-purchasing shares of the Indian energy giant Adani Group before IHC publicly announced its investment. The case was settled in September 2025 for about $150k, with Bhatia denying guilt.

Shortly after Josimar disclosed Bhatia’s past, ADI Predictstreet announced Dimitrios Psarrakis as its new CEO. However, Psarrakis’s background also raises questions. He previously served as an assistant to Eva Kaili, a former European Parliament Vice President, who was a key figure in the European Parliament’s Qatar corruption scandal (also known as Qatargate).

Former European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili (left) and ADI Predictstreet CEO Dimitrios Psarrakis (right)

Kaili accepted bribes from Qatar and Morocco in exchange for lobbying for their interests within the EU. While Kaili’s legal and moral risks cannot be directly equated with Psarrakis’s, his professional association with a scandal central figure is enough to raise questions about reputation and due diligence.

Beyond executive credibility issues, ADI Predictstreet, claimed to be the first officially licensed prediction market in Europe, also drew attention for its rapid licensing process. Just days before being announced as the official prediction market partner for the 2026 World Cup, ADI Predictstreet announced it had obtained a license in Gibraltar. The company claimed the approval process was “record-breaking” and very rigorous.

However, although the domain name of ADI Predictstreet was registered as early as January this year and it received its license by the end of March, its official product is still not online, and how the real-money trading experience will perform remains unknown. As FIFA’s front-facing official prediction market platform, external observers still cannot determine whether its trading matching, settlement, risk control, anti-manipulation, and user protection mechanisms have withstood stress tests.

Therefore, amid multiple uncertainties, the partnership between the World Cup and ADI Predictstreet has been marked by a trust deficit from the outset.

FIFA’s Historical Baggage and Betting Controversies

Apart from doubts about ADI Predictstreet’s credibility, FIFA, often criticized for corruption, also finds it difficult to gain “innate trust” in this matter.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice brought large-scale corruption charges against several FIFA officials and sports marketing executives. U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch described the corruption as “widespread, systemic, and deeply rooted.” This historical background makes it hard for FIFA to convince the public solely through official statements in any cooperation involving betting, data, or prediction markets.

In recent years, FIFA’s ties with the betting and data industries have deepened, fueling concerns about the integrity of the competitions.

Before the 2022 Qatar World Cup, FIFA reached an agreement with betting operator Betano; the following year, it signed a deal with New Zealand’s lottery company TAB for the Women’s World Cup; early 2026, FIFA partnered with data company Stats Perform to commercialize its streaming platform FIFA+ and bring more lower-tier matches into betting markets.

From a business perspective, this can be seen as FIFA’s development of data assets and fan engagement. But from an sports integrity standpoint, it also means the World Cup is becoming more embedded in betting and trading ecosystems. As the event increasingly relies on the commercial value brought by betting and trading, whether it can independently control risks becomes a big question.

In response, FIFA has taken some measures to address threats related to betting. In 2024, FIFA relocated its legal and integrity teams to Miami (leading to the loss of many experienced staff), and established an integrity working group including INTERPOL, the FBI, and betting industry representatives.

In February 2026, FIFA announced that IC360, a U.S.-based integrity and compliance monitoring firm, would join the group and use its ProhiBet software to monitor threats related to betting, including whether players and officials are betting on their own matches.

However, this mechanism appears more as a screening tool for legitimate markets rather than a comprehensive defense line against the risks of global betting and prediction markets for the World Cup. For an event involving participants worldwide and an extremely long information chain, the real insider trading risks often occur outside the most easily regulated areas.

Rising Concerns Over Insider Trading, Leading Prediction Markets Tighten Rules

Traditional betting monitoring relies on information sharing among bookmakers, data providers, leagues, and regulators. Prediction markets, however, may involve crypto wallets, offshore platforms, cross-border accounts, agent trades, and decentralized settlements. Even if official partner platforms are regulated, other platforms could bypass FIFA’s official system to set up World Cup markets.

If abnormal trading occurs on non-partner platforms, among non-U.S. users, with crypto wallets, or through proxy accounts, whether FIFA’s traditional integrity tools can penetrate remains an unproven question.

In sports prediction markets, the risks of insider manipulation for World Cup champions, group qualifiers, or team advancements are generally low and difficult for a single participant to manipulate.

But micro-markets and very specific events are entirely different. Whether it’s a player’s starting status, injury withdrawal, red cards, penalty kicks, referee decisions, or VAR controversies, these events are more susceptible to influence by a few insiders and can be priced in advance based on non-public information.

The U.S. CFTC, as the sole regulator of prediction markets, has long recognized this. Its guidance emphasizes that regulated exchanges should pay close attention to contracts related to individual player performance, prop bets, and micro-markets prone to manipulation. The CFTC also encourages platforms to share data with sports leagues and strengthen contract settlement and market surveillance.

In response, U.S. prediction market platforms have taken steps to manage these risks. After Congress pushed for legislation restricting prediction markets, Kalshi and Polymarket quickly updated their rules. Kalshi announced it would prohibit trading related to sports personnel involved in or holding positions in relevant contracts; Polymarket also revised rules to ban users from trading when possessing confidential information or having the ability to influence event outcomes.

However, the complexity of the World Cup far exceeds that of a single U.S. professional league. The NBA and MLB have clear league, team, player union, referee, and official data systems. The World Cup involves FIFA, continental confederations, 48 national teams, clubs, agents, medical teams, referee committees, broadcasters, and data providers—an enormous array of groups. Who qualifies as an “insider,” how to identify them, and whether they can trade via relatives, friends, proxy wallets, or third-party accounts—these questions are even harder to solve in the World Cup scenario.

Moreover, prediction markets face not only issues of sports integrity but also questions of global regulatory legality. In April, Brazil blocked 27 prediction market platforms and tightened derivatives rules, banning derivatives based on sports, online gaming, politics, elections, culture, and social outcomes. Many other countries also do not accept the “event contract is not gambling” argument.

In such a context, FIFA’s choice of a platform with numerous doubts and unverified products as the official prediction market partner for the World Cup itself raises questions about sports integrity.

Of course, the 2026 World Cup will not determine the survival of prediction markets, but it is likely to define their mainstreaming boundary in the global sports industry: whether they are a regulated event trading infrastructure or another gambling risk gateway amplified by global sports traffic.