Nine European gambling regulators warn on prediction-market risks

Nine European gambling supervisory authorities - Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland - issued a coordinated statement this week flagging the regulatory gaps around prediction markets and the consumer-protection risks they create.

Prediction markets let users speculate on the outcomes of future events: elections, sports results, economic indicators, even pop-culture milestones. The signatories note that most jurisdictions lack a clear framework for classifying these platforms - they fall ambiguously between gambling and financial products, often falling under neither regulator's full authority. That gap, the statement argues, "significant risks for consumers can emerge."

The regulators flagged a specific list of vulnerabilities: insufficient player safeguards, heightened addiction risks (since the product is structurally similar to fixed-odds betting), and exposure to market manipulation, fraud, and opaque fund handling. None of these are theoretical - they describe the actual gaps in active prediction-market products that European players can already access through US-based platforms operating cross-border.

Why this matters. Prediction markets have grown rapidly in 2024-2026, driven by US platforms expanding internationally. They're marketed as financial products in some jurisdictions to avoid gambling licensing, then accept retail customers who in any other gambling context would receive deposit limits, self-exclusion access, and AML monitoring. The joint statement is the first multi-regulator signal that the European framework intends to treat these as gambling products subject to the existing protections.

Germany's GGL framed the statement as part of a wider cross-border push: "international cooperation and cross-border information exchange" are essential to combating unlicensed offerings, the authority said in its announcement. Expect prediction-market-specific regulation in at least some of the nine signatory countries within the next 12-18 months.

See our licensing explained guide for the broader European regulatory landscape this statement sits within.