A few dozen spectators at the Blacktown International Sportspark on Monday watched the ACT Meteors’ women’s side battle valiantly against the Hobart Hurricanes in the T20 Spring Challenge, a modest precursor to what will be a busy summer of women’s cricket.
The intermittent ripples of light applause at the ground were in contrast to the feverish mouse clicking and screen tapping by those following online. On Kalshi – one of several new “prediction market” gambling websites similar to the one actor Sydney Sweeney recently endorsed – a late betting surge drove total wagers for the pre-season match past $350,000. Over at Hurstville Oval at the same time, the match between the Sydney Sixers and Brisbane Heat drew even more interest. Total bets for that fixture reached $476,000.
Other events at Australian venues have triggered even greater flurries. One NBL match from February topped $1m, according to the “volume” figure provided by Kalshi. On competitor site Polymarket, betting on an A-League Men game in April rose above $1.1m.
The extraordinary growth of these largely unregulated platforms – which carry numerous local sporting fixtures, even while they cannot legally operate in Australia – have prompted legal experts and law enforcement to meet this week in Melbourne.
A seminar hosted by the Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association and a symposium run by the Victorian police will discuss how to curb their threat. Sports integrity consultant Dr Catherine Ordway says wagering on these platforms was “growing exponentially” and while some risks are akin to the established ills associated with offshore wagering, others are exacerbated by the broader scope of prediction markets.
“You’re not just concerned about whether or not your team is going to win or lose, which of course is a prediction, the issue is that it goes beyond just who is going to win the Dally M medal or who’s going to turn up at the at the medal ceremony and which designer dress will they be wearing,” she says.
“It goes well beyond that into spaces that we haven’t seen in as a gambling product before.”
Exotic markets, props or contingencies – smaller bets on one part of a larger contest – increase risks to sports integrity because they are more vulnerable to manipulation. While regulated sports betting companies in Australia are limited on what types of bets they can offer – for example, most disposals in AFL or the time of the first goal in football – there are no such restrictions on overseas prediction market platforms.
Polymarket betting on the Australia Cup match between semi-professional football club Sydney Olympic and A-League side Brisbane Roar in July included a prediction on the number of corners. The platforms track when and how much is wagered – roughly $700 on corners for that Australia Cup match – but offer anonymity to users through cryptocurrency transactions and lenient identification policies.
Although local users need to use VPNs to access prediction markets, Asic ran an education campaign in August about their risks, highlighting that none are licensed in Australia and declaring that “you may be betting against people who have more information than you do, and that can put ordinary consumers at a serious disadvantage”.
The sector is growing quickly, however, and has sought to demonstrate its legitimacy using prominent endorsements. ADI Predictstreet became the official prediction market partner of the Fifa World Cup this year. NBA great LeBron James signed an endorsement deal last month with Polymarket – which Australian regulator the ACMA claims is blocked to Australians but was still accessible on Monday – reportedly worth US$15m ($21.5m), even as the platform carries bets on questions such as “will LeBron James retire before next NBA season?”
Amid heightened competition in the burgeoning sector, Sweeney promotes sports-focused Novig. In a new ad released on Monday, the American actor criticises other prediction platforms.
“There’s insider trading on dictators dying and armies of bots manipulating it all,” she says to camera while topless. “There’s someone sitting in a bathroom stall betting their 401k [retirement savings] on a war. And then there are people who just trade on sports.”
Growth of these overseas platforms is likely to mean foregone betting revenue for Australian sporting leagues under so-called product fee arrangements. The AFL receives roughly 1% of the turnover of bets made on AFL matches via Sportsbet and other local providers, but nothing via bets made on Kalshi. AFL matches listed on Kalshi have attracted more than $10m in bets.
Ordway is concerned about the broad threat to Australian institutions, both in sport and in other sectors. “The challenge is some jurisdictions will allow companies to be registered and to flourish without any oversight or concern about who’s operating them or where the money’s going or or how they’re behaving and whether they’re upholding international standards or human rights,” she says.
Other events offered by platforms include what will be Melbourne’s wettest month this year – settled by BOM data – and the local government elections in Tasmania later this month. $42,000 has already been wagered on the outcome of the Huon Valley mayoral race on Polymarket.
Kalshi and Polymarket introduced guardrails and surveillance tools this year in a bid to address concerns in the US over the platforms’ vulnerability to insider trading.
