ASIC rules prediction markets carry all the features of a bet

Australia's securities regulator has told the prediction markets industry it will not be granted a pathway to operate under financial services law, drawing an explicit equivalence between event contracts and gambling products.

Sarah Court, Chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, set out the position in a published blog post, writing that ASIC "is not currently convinced" that prediction market products fall outside the regulatory perimeter governing betting. The statement closes off an argument the industry has pursued in several jurisdictions — that event contracts are financial instruments and therefore a securities regulator's business, not a gambling authority's.

The ruling has direct relevance to the preemption fight playing out in US federal courts, where Kalshi's central argument rests on exactly that classification. A US federal court in Illinois has already sided with that framing. Australia's position points in the opposite direction, and gives ammunition to any regulator inclined to treat the question as settled in favour of gambling law.