Share 
Who is going to win the Maine midterm election? Will Albertans vote yes or no on the upcoming referendum on whether or not the province should pursue breaking away from Canada? What colour dress will a movie star wear to an awards night?
For many people around the world, betting on elections, stock-market ups and downs and what celebrities will wear has become the stuff of wagering. And giants like Kalshi, Polymarket and Robinhood are leading the way. Robinhood just reported $156 million in US revenue in the second quarter of 2026 alone.
Now, the traditional players are moving forward. DraftKings caused a major stir this week after CEO Jason Robins said the platform would accelerate plans to expand its prediction-market offerings, which would squeeze earnings in the short term for long-term growth.
When Alberta launched its legal online casino market in mid-July, the regulations made it clear that the prediction market was not welcome. Polymarket voluntarily stopped taking Alberta wagers.
The issue? The first are the repeated stories of abuse within the prediction market: that political insiders can use their knowledge to lay bets on elections or leadership races. Or, even more cynically, that candidates themselves can manipulate their campaigns so they can pay off bets made themselves or by proxy.
And it gets to wider issues of manipulation when it comes to stock values, crypto prices or even whether Donald Trump will wear a signature red tie at the State of the Union.
But Dale Nally, the province’s Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction, admitted that there’s big pressure on him to reconsider the prediction-market stance.
“I would say we feel a little pressure because we’re aware of what’s going on,” Nally said. “Because part of the thinking is, look, we don’t want to create an environment where we have an area where people are using prediction markets to essentially bet on who wins the next election – and then start influencing the results because of that. So, that’s a concern.
“But we also know that this is something that people want, and it’s going on around us. So I can say that we’re monitoring it closely. We haven’t really made any hard decisions at this point.”
In July, the messaging from the Alberta government was more like a hard no when it came to the predictions market; Nally’s comments suggest a possible softening of that stance.
Alberta’s reasoning for legalizing the iGaming market was that people in the province were already spending millions upon millions at offshore sportsbooks and casinos. There was no fighting the grey market, so why not legitimize it? With that comes tax revenue and the ability to entrench player protections.
The prediction market may also prove to be too big for Alberta to ignore.
“Hw do you control that?” Nally said. “We know there’s a potential for fraud, and that’s a concern for us. I think there’s a lot of work that has to happen in this space, and so that’s why we’re proceeding cautiously, and we’re just monitoring at this point.”
