Prediction markets in Australia (2026): the legal alternatives

Why there are no prediction markets in Australia

Prediction markets such as Polymarket let you buy yes/no contracts on events, from elections to interest rates. Online betting on events is legal in Australia only with a provider licensed by a state or territory: providing it to people here without one breaches the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, and each day is a separate contravention, with a civil penalty of up to 7,500 penalty units. No prediction market holds such a licence. ACMA, the federal regulator, has internet providers block illegal gambling sites, and polymarket.com was among the 1,810 addresses on its blocked list on October 25, 2026. Polymarket itself lists Australia among the countries it completely restricts.

The Act exempts contracts that are financial products under the Corporations Act, but that’s no easy way in either: ASIC has banned selling binary options, yes/no contracts on prices, rates, indices, commodities and crypto, to retail clients until October 1, 2031, and it hasn’t published anything on prediction markets. From January 1, 2027, under the Gambling Reform Act 2026, banks and payment providers will also have to block payments, crypto included, to designated illegal gambling services.

What is legal is betting on events through a licensed provider. Our guide to whether prediction markets are legal in Australia explains the rules, and is Polymarket legal in Australia? covers Polymarket in detail.

How legal event betting works

There are two ways to bet on an event legally in Australia.

• The Betfair exchange. You bet against other punters, not Betfair. You can back an outcome, betting that it happens, or lay it, betting that it doesn’t, at prices other punters set, and Betfair charges a commission on your net winnings in each market. It’s the closest thing to a prediction market the law allows: the Northern Territory’s 2025–26 annual report counts a single betting exchange brand, and Betfair calls itself Australia’s only online betting exchange.
• Licensed bookmakers. You bet at the bookmaker’s fixed odds, which include its margin. bet365, PointsBet and Sportsbet publish rules for elections, politics and novelty markets. Bet Right’s InfoMarket shows its prices in cents, from 1c to 99c, in an exchange-style screen where you can buy and sell, but legally each trade is a bet with Bet Right.

Laying means you can lose more than you stand to win. Lay $10 at odds of 5.0 and you win $10, less commission, if the outcome doesn’t happen, but lose $40 if it does: that $40 is your liability. To compare a prediction-market price with odds, divide 100 by the price in cents: 25c is odds of 4.0.

How the five compare

All five are licensed by the Northern Territory and on ACMA’s register of licensed interactive gambling providers. App ratings are from the Australian App Store and Google Play on October 23, 2026; Bet Right’s are for its betting app, whose store descriptions don’t mention InfoMarket.

How we scored them

Several of the sites were blocked to us from outside Australia, so we used their help centres, rule books, app listings and the regulators’ records, and scored what we couldn’t check conservatively. Bet Right’s InfoMarket is new, and its sites blocked us entirely, so its payments and support scores are cautious. We don’t list or score bonuses. The full method is in how we rank event betting sites in Australia.

Which events you can bet on

Each regulator decides which events its licensees may take bets on, and the rules differ by state.

• Northern Territory, which licenses all five sites in our ranking, 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 the result is clear, public, independently verifiable and known within five days, and the event isn’t restricted to under-18s.
• New South Wales allows elections and other political events, entertainment and literary awards, RBA interest rates, Nobel prizes, Australian of the Year, reality TV and novelty events, but its rules for bookmakers exclude NSW state and council elections and require bets by candidates, campaign managers and electoral officials to be restricted.
• Victoria has a narrower list: fixed-odds bets on the Academy Awards, UK general elections, US presidential elections and Australian federal and state elections. It has banned bets on the performance of under-18s since February 26, 2024.
• South Australia approves Australian federal and state elections and referendums, UK, US and papal elections, the Academy Awards and Eurovision, and its approvals also apply to interstate operators.
• Tasmania approves awards, cultural events and political elections.

Bookmakers add their own rules. Election bets at bet365 and Bet Right are singles only, and bet365 settles its outright markets on the party that provides the Prime Minister, Premier or Chief Minister, and its seat markets on the Australian Electoral Commission’s results. Online bets on sport once it has started are banned: those are taken by phone only.

What it costs

On the Betfair exchange, the commission is the price. At 6%, a winning $100 back bet at 3.0 makes $188 instead of $200, which works like odds of 2.88, so an exchange price only beats a bookmaker’s if it’s still higher after commission. A small number of very profitable customers pay Betfair’s Premium Charge, which tops up their fees to 20% of gross profit above £25,000 over 52 active weeks, or 40% above £100,000. Our Betfair commission calculator works out any back or lay bet and compares it with a bookmaker’s odds.

Bookmakers don’t charge commission: their margin is built into the odds, and we found no published margin at any of the four. InfoMarket’s cent prices include Bet Right’s margin too. You can measure a market’s margin by adding up the implied probabilities of every outcome; our margin calculator does it for you. Watch for inactivity fees: bet365 charges $5 a month after a year without activity, and PointsBet $10 a month after 18 months.

Staying safe

• Check the register. Only providers on ACMA’s register of licensed interactive gambling providers may take online bets from people in Australia. Our legality check searches it, and flags sites on ACMA’s blocked list.
• Don’t use a VPN to reach a blocked site. Polymarket’s own terms forbid it, and an unlicensed site offers you none of the protections below.
• Pay the licensed way. Licensed providers can’t accept credit cards or crypto, by law since June 11, 2024, so a site that asks you to pay in crypto isn’t one of them.
• Know your liability. When you lay on Betfair, you can lose several times what you stand to win.
• Use BetStop. It excludes you from every licensed provider at once, but it doesn’t cover illegal sites.

Taxes

Capital gains and losses from gambling are disregarded for capital gains tax under section 118-37 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, and betting operators pay the states’ and the ACT’s point-of-consumption taxes. We couldn’t read the Australian Taxation Office’s own guidance on betting winnings, so if betting is a business for you, ask a tax adviser.

Betting responsibly

On an exchange every winning market pays commission, and on a bookmaker every price includes a margin, so punters as a whole lose over time. Set a deposit limit before your first bet, never chase losses, and stop when it isn’t fun. BetStop, the national self-exclusion register, blocks you from every licensed online and phone betting provider for 3 months up to a lifetime; call 1800 238 786 or register at betstop.gov.au. The National Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 is free, confidential and open 24/7, and our guide to gambling help in Australia lists more support.