Are prediction markets legal in Australia?

The short answer

Not as such. Australia allows betting on elections, awards and many other events, but only through a provider licensed by a state or territory, and no prediction market holds such a licence. ACMA, the federal regulator, has internet providers block polymarket.com, and Polymarket itself doesn’t accept users in Australia. What you can legally use instead is a licensed bookmaker or the Betfair exchange, if you’re 18 or over.

What the law says

Online gambling is governed by the Interactive Gambling Act 2001. A service that takes bets online from anyone physically present in Australia needs a licence from a state or territory that covers that kind of service; providing one without it is a civil contravention carrying up to 7,500 penalty units, and an offence carrying up to 5,000, with each day a separate contravention. The Act extends to acts and things outside Australia, so it applies to providers based overseas too.

ACMA, which enforces the Act, has internet providers block sites “providing an unlicensed regulated interactive gambling service to customers in Australia (such as online betting services that don’t have a valid Australian licence)”. polymarket.com was among the 1,810 addresses on its blocked list on October 25, 2026.

Polymarket and Kalshi

• Polymarket’s help centre lists Australia among the 39 countries “completely restricted” from using it (August 14, 2026), and its developer documentation puts Australia among the places where users can only close existing positions. It has no Australian licence. See is Polymarket legal in Australia?
• Kalshi, a US prediction market, has no Australian licence and isn’t on ACMA’s register. It wasn’t on ACMA’s blocked list on October 25, 2026, and we couldn’t confirm whether it accepts people in Australia. We found no statement on Kalshi from ACMA, ASIC or the Northern Territory regulator.

Event contracts as financial products

The Interactive Gambling Act doesn’t cover contracts that are financial products under the Corporations Act, which ASIC regulates. But ASIC has banned issuing and distributing binary options to retail clients since May 3, 2021, and extended the ban until October 1, 2031. ASIC describes binary options as over-the-counter derivatives on whether a specified event happens in a set time, such as a price movement or a central bank’s interest-rate decision; its order covers yes/no contracts on the price of an asset or cryptoasset, a rate, an index or a commodity. On its face, it doesn’t cover contracts on elections or sport, and ASIC hasn’t published anything on prediction markets that we found.

What you can bet on legally

Licensed bookmakers and the Betfair exchange may take bets on events their regulator approves. The Northern Territory, which licenses most national online bookmakers and Betfair, declares political elections, entertainment, literary and art awards, Nobel prizes, RBA interest rates, ABS statistics such as CPI, GDP and unemployment, stock and currency indices, oil prices, rainfall and weather, cryptocurrency prices and novelty events. A market may only open if its result is clear, public, independently verifiable and known within five days, and the event isn’t restricted to under-18s.

The states have their own lists. New South Wales allows elections and other political events, awards, RBA interest rates and novelty markets, but its rules for bookmakers exclude NSW state and council elections and require bets by candidates and electoral officials to be restricted. Victoria allows fixed-odds bets on the Academy Awards, UK general elections, US presidential elections and Australian federal and state elections. South Australia approves Australian federal and state elections and referendums, UK, US and papal elections, the Academy Awards and Eurovision, and Tasmania approves awards, cultural events and political elections.

Two licensed products come closest to a prediction market:

• The Betfair exchange, where you back or lay outcomes against other punters, at prices they set, for a commission on net winnings. The Northern Territory’s 2025–26 annual report counts a single betting exchange brand, and Betfair calls itself Australia’s only online betting exchange.
• Bet Right’s InfoMarket, which shows prices in cents, from 1c to 99c, in an exchange-style screen. Bet Right’s rules say every trade is a wager, with Bet Right as the counterparty.

Compare them, and the bookmakers with the most detailed election markets, in our ranking of the legal alternatives to prediction markets.

What it means for you

• The law targets providers. The Act’s offences and penalties apply to whoever provides or advertises an illegal service, not the customer.
• No protection. BetStop, the national self-exclusion register, doesn’t apply to illegal services, and if an unlicensed site won’t pay, no Australian regulator can make it.
• No VPNs. Polymarket’s terms forbid using a VPN to get around its restrictions.
• Check before you sign up. Our legality check searches ACMA’s register and its blocked list.

What changes in 2027

From January 1, 2027, under the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Act 2026, banks and payment providers must block payments, including digital currency, to designated illegal gambling services. The Act doesn’t mention prediction markets or event contracts.