As Iraq prepares to face France and Jordan takes on Algeria in the FIFA World Cup 2026, some fans will not only be watching the matches. They may also be putting money behind predictions on who will win.
ADI Predictstreet announced a UAE launch during the tournament, describing itself as the region’s first football prediction market platform. According to the company, the platform allows users to put money behind outcomes ranging from match results and player performances to broader tournament developments, using traditional payment methods and supported digital currencies.
Dimitrios Psarrakis, chief executive officer of ADI Predictstreet, says users who take a position that aligns with a verified outcome may receive a financial return according to the rules of the specific market.
The concept shares similarities with traditional sports betting: users put money behind an outcome and may receive a financial return if their prediction is correct. However, companies behind prediction markets argue that the way those predictions are bought and sold makes them different from a traditional sportsbook.
“The key difference is that a prediction market is structured as a marketplace for forecasting outcomes, rather than a traditional betting model,” says Psarrakis.
In a traditional sportsbook, users place wagers against an operator that sets the odds and manages its own risk. Psarrakis says ADI’s model does not operate as a traditional “house” taking the opposite side of a user’s position. Instead, it provides a marketplace where pricing is shaped by supply, demand and collective sentiment.
The broader category of prediction markets has gained attention globally through Kalshi, a US-based platform that allows users to trade contracts on everything from election outcomes and interest rate decisions to cultural events. Its rise has become part of a wider debate over whether prediction markets should be regulated as gambling, financial markets or a category of their own.
The distinction between prediction markets, sports betting and financial products is not always straightforward.
“I see prediction markets as a hybrid between a betting exchange and a financial product,” says Joseph Borg, partner at WH Partners and head of its fintech and financial services practice, with expertise in gaming and gambling.
He says the model has little in common with traditional fixed-odds betting, where a bookmaker sets the odds and takes the opposite side of a user’s wager.
In simple terms, a traditional sportsbook works like a bookmaker: it sets the odds and takes the opposite side of a user’s bet. A prediction market works more like a marketplace, where users take positions against each other and prices change depending on what participants believe is likely to happen.
Unlike a traditional bet, users can also sell their position to another participant before the event is resolved.
However, Borg says prediction markets also share similarities with betting exchanges such as Betfair and Smarkets.
“Prediction markets and betting exchanges share the same basic architecture: the operator doesn’t take a position or set the price, it just matches counterparties and takes a commission, and the price moves on supply and demand from users rather than being quoted by the house,” he says.
The debate around prediction markets comes down to a simple question: if users can put money on the outcome of a football match and receive a financial return if they are correct, does it matter whether the platform calls it a prediction market, a betting exchange or something else?
Around the world, regulators are still debating whether prediction markets should be treated as gaming products, financial instruments or a category of their own.
In the UAE, the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority oversees commercial gaming activities, including sports wagering, which, Borg says, is “defined to include betting on the outcomes of events such as football matches, as well as lottery, internet gaming and land-based gaming.”
However, ADI Predictstreet does not appear on the GCGRA's publicly available list of licensed operators. The GCGRA declined to comment formally on the company's status. WIRED Middle East sought additional comment from ADI Predictstreet but did not receive a response.
According to him, the key question is not necessarily what a platform calls itself, but what users are actually doing. If someone is putting money behind a World Cup result and receiving a payout based on whether they are right or wrong, regulators may focus on the substance of that transaction rather than its label.
“If a UAE-facing platform allows users to put money on, say, a World Cup match result and pays out based on that result, the substance of that transaction sits squarely within sports wagering as the GCGRA has defined it, irrespective of whether the platform calls itself a prediction market, an event contract venue or a forecasting tool. The wrapper doesn’t change the underlying risk transfer.”
Psarrakis says the way prediction markets are classified can differ depending on the legal frameworks available in each country. A platform treated as a gambling product in one jurisdiction may be considered closer to a financial product in another.
ADI Predictstreet is licensed as a betting intermediary under Gibraltar’s Gambling Act 2025. Psarrakis says the licence reflects the legal framework under which the company operates in Gibraltar, “while the prediction market model describes how the platform functions and how users interact with markets.”
As prediction markets expand beyond sports into politics, economics and current affairs, questions are also emerging over what types of events should become markets. Psarrakis says “not every event should become a market,” adding that ADI focuses on events that are “public, verifiable, objectively resolvable and appropriate within the relevant regulatory and ethical framework.”
