Wealthsimple just received regulatory approval to offer prediction market trading to its four million Canadian customers. Interactive Brokers Canada beat them to it last year. Questrade is expected to follow before summer ends. Canada’s retail investing establishment has decided prediction markets are real, and they are all moving at once.
The platform that changed that is not a Canadian one. Polymarket built its reputation through a series of high-profile political markets covering US elections, geopolitical events, and central bank decisions that proved prediction markets could price real-world outcomes more accurately than polls or pundits. By the time Wealthsimple filed for approval, Canadian demand for this kind of trading was already established. The Canadian firms are moving into an appetite that Polymarket largely created.
The Crowd Prices Events
Polymarket runs on the Polygon blockchain. Users fund accounts with USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, and trade contracts on yes-or-no outcomes. A contract priced at 65 cents implies a 65% crowd probability that the event resolves yes. If it does, the contract pays out at $1. If not, it expires worthless. There is no house margin in the traditional sense. Polymarket charges a small transaction fee on trades and the platform facilitates peer-to-peer exchange rather than acting as a bookmaker.
The markets that drove Polymarket’s profile were the big political ones. The 2024 US election markets attracted enormous volume and generated significant media coverage when they priced outcomes differently from polling averages. Bank of Canada rate decisions, commodity price movements, and major sports results have all drawn Canadian traders to the platform. The depth of the market on major events now runs into the tens of millions of dollars in volume.
Canada’s Biggest Retail Platforms Didn’t Miss Their Moment
Wealthsimple’s approval from Canadian regulators to offer forecast contracts is the clearest sign yet that prediction markets are transitioning from a grey-area product into something approaching mainstream financial infrastructure in Canada. The prediction markets industry generated roughly US$2 billion in annual revenue in 2025 and is projected to surpass US$10 billion by 2030, according to analysts at Citizens Financial Group. As BNN Bloomberg reported, Wealthsimple’s four million Canadian customers and $125 billion in assets under administration will significantly expand the number of Canadians with formal access to this type of trading.
The domestic platforms launching now operate under strict conditions. Canadian regulatory approvals currently cover contracts tied to economic indicators, financial markets, and climate trends. Sports and election markets, which are among the most active categories on Polymarket globally, are not yet permitted under Canadian regulatory frameworks. Users who want access to the full range of Polymarket markets are engaging with the platform directly.
The Research Backs the Premise and Complicates It
The case for prediction markets rests on a straightforward claim: people with money on the line produce better probability estimates than people without. Polymarket’s track record on major political and economic events has been cited repeatedly by economists and analysts as evidence that the crowd-pricing mechanism works. When Polymarket’s odds diverged from polling averages on major elections, the markets were right more often than the polls.
A working paper published in early 2026 by researchers from HEC Montreal, the University of Toronto, and ESSEC Business School analysed more than 1.4 million users and US$20 billion in volume across 70 million trades on Polymarket between 2022 and 2025. The finding: sophisticated users capture the majority of profits while most participants break even or lose small amounts. The implication is that prediction markets reward genuine forecasting skill over time, which is exactly the property that makes them interesting to financially literate users.
Getting Into Polymarket Takes About 15 Minutes
Canadian users in most provinces can access Polymarket directly through the web interface. Funding a Polymarket account requires USDC, which Canadian users typically purchase through domestic exchanges like Coinbase, Shakepay, or Newton using Interac e-Transfer, then transfer to their Polymarket deposit address. The full process takes around 15 minutes from initial exchange purchase to active trading.
The Canadian market for prediction trading is in a formative period. Wealthsimple and Interactive Brokers offer the regulated domestic version with a narrower product set. Polymarket offers the global version with deeper liquidity, a broader range of markets, and no house margin. The two options serve different users, and both are growing.
Photo: iStock
