How we rank the legal alternatives to prediction markets in Australia

What we rank

Prediction markets such as Polymarket aren’t legal in Australia: online betting is legal only with a provider licensed by a state or territory, and no prediction market holds such a licence. So our ranking compares the legal ways to bet on elections, awards and other events: the Betfair exchange, where you back or lay against other punters, and licensed bookmakers that publish rules for event markets.

To qualify, a site must be on ACMA’s register of licensed interactive gambling providers, with a licence from a state or territory regulator. We rank five, Betfair, bet365, PointsBet, Sportsbet and Bet Right’s InfoMarket, all licensed by the Northern Territory, and haven’t yet reviewed other licensed bookmakers with election markets. Platforms without an Australian licence, including Polymarket, which ACMA blocks, and Kalshi, are never eligible, however popular they are elsewhere.

The six criteria

Each criterion gets a rating from 0 to 10; the overall score is the weighted average, rounded to one decimal, and the ranking follows it.

How commission and pricing are scored

A bet’s real cost is the gap between the price you get and the true chance of the outcome. We score how low that cost is and how openly it’s shown:

• An exchange’s commission. Betfair builds no margin into its prices; it charges a Market Base Rate on your net winnings in each market, published on its charges page and shown in each market’s Rules tab: 6% on sport and international racing, 10% on NRL, 8% or 10% on Australian racing. We also count extra charges for a few customers, such as Betfair’s Premium Charge on very profitable accounts, and the fact that it publishes no separate rate for politics.
• A bookmaker’s margin. Bookmakers build their margin into the odds. We found no published margin at bet365, PointsBet, Sportsbet or Bet Right, so they score lower here than an exchange that publishes its price, whatever their odds on a given day. InfoMarket’s cent prices include Bet Right’s margin too.

We don’t collect or compare live odds. Our Betfair commission calculator shows what a commission costs on any bet, and our margin calculator works out a bookmaker’s margin from its prices.

How we rate the other criteria

• Licensing & safety: a licence and a place on ACMA’s register start near the top. Fines and enforcement action by ACMA, the state and territory regulators and AUSTRAC cost points, weighted by their size, how recent they are and whether they involved self-excluded or vulnerable customers. A product too new to have a track record scores a little lower.
• Event markets: published rules for elections, politics, awards, novelty, economic and crypto markets, how clearly they say how a market settles, for example on the Australian Electoral Commission’s results, and evidence that the markets actually run, such as a regulator’s decision about one. Where a site blocked us, we couldn’t see its live markets and say so.
• Payments & payouts: published withdrawal times count most, then minimums, fees, the choice of Australian methods such as PayID, and fees on inactive accounts. A site whose payment pages we couldn’t read scores conservatively.
• App & experience: ratings on the Australian App Store and Google Play on the date checked, weighted by how many people rated them.
• Support & responsible gambling: live chat and phone hours, with 24/7 support scoring highest, and how easy it is to set deposit limits, take a break, get activity statements and use BetStop, the national self-exclusion register.

How the score works

The overall score is calculated automatically from the six ratings and their weights. A lower-scoring site never sits above a higher-scoring one, and our site won’t publish if it does. When two sites tie, as Betfair and bet365 do at 8.5, we put first the one that works most like a prediction market.

What we leave out

Bonuses and promotions. Several states ban advertising betting inducements, and we compare the sites themselves, not their offers. Unlicensed platforms, including Polymarket and Kalshi. Online casino games, which can’t legally be offered to people in Australia at all. Live odds: we don’t collect them.

Where our facts come from

ACMA’s register of licensed providers and its blocked list, the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, the Northern Territory’s declared events, licensed operators list and published decisions, the other states’ lists of approved events, ACMA’s and AUSTRAC’s enforcement releases, each site’s rules, help centre and charges pages, and the Australian App Store and Google Play, each dated on the page. Where a site was blocked to us, we used its help centre and rule books, which stayed readable, and say in the review what we couldn’t check.

Independence

SafeBet.ai may be paid by sites whose links are marked as advertising, but a site can’t buy a place or a score, and we only link to providers on ACMA’s register. See our editorial policy, and tell us if something’s out of date.