New Display Rules Go Far Beyond Trade Blocking
The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) has issued updated guidance that significantly narrows how Canadian brokers can present prediction-market products to retail clients. The notice, published on 16 October, requires dealers to keep any contract they are not permitted to offer completely out of view for Canadian users. This means filtering must extend well past the trading interface: ineligible markets must be excluded from search results, algorithmic recommendations, promotional banners, and any other surface a client might encounter within the app or website.
CIRO also explicitly bans routing Canadian clients to third-party websites where such contracts might be available. The regulator's stated concern is that merely displaying a contract—regardless of whether a trade can actually be executed—could create the false impression that the product is authorised for sale in Canada. For brokers that distribute products sourced from U.S.-based prediction exchanges, the practical implication is that a dedicated Canadian market-selection layer must sit in front of the client-facing interface before any contract is shown.
Sports and Entertainment Contracts Now Explicitly Banned
The October notice makes unambiguous what CIRO had signalled in August: sports and entertainment contracts do not qualify under the securities-regulated framework it has authorised for Canadian dealers. The earlier statement was interpretive; the new language is prescriptive. Brokers can no longer rely on a general eligibility screen—those categories must be hard-blocked from the Canadian product catalogue entirely.
The restriction also carries direct consequences for marketing. Wealthsimple's Predict page, for example, currently features illustrative sample questions referencing a potential OpenAI initial public offering and a hypothetical foldable iPhone. While those prompts are presented as examples rather than live tradable contracts, CIRO's display rules raise the question of whether such marketing material can remain visible to Canadian audiences. Wealthsimple may need to reassess its Canadian-facing promotional content to ensure no reference to an unavailable contract type lingers in a client's line of sight.
What Traders Can Still Access
Despite the tightened perimeter, CIRO continues to allow a defined set of event contracts tied to economic data releases, environmental measurements, and recognised financial indicators. Eligibility hinges on the existence of an objective, verifiable outcome mechanism—such as an official government statistic or a widely accepted market benchmark. Two standing conditions from CIRO's earlier guidance remain unchanged: contracts must carry a minimum maturity of 30 days, and the use of leverage is prohibited.
For Canadian retail traders, the net effect is a curated but functional prediction-market offering focused on macro, financial, and climate-linked events. The 30-day floor and no-leverage rule mean the products remain closer to fixed-odds event contracts than to leveraged derivatives, which should limit downside exposure for less experienced participants.
Two Brokers Currently Operating in the Canadian Market
Only two dealers hold authorisation to offer event contracts to Canadian retail clients at this time. Interactive Brokers Canada was first to market, launching its Forecast Contracts in April 2025. Those products are executed on ForecastEx, a CFTC-regulated exchange that is wholly owned by Interactive Brokers. Wealthsimple subsequently received its own CIRO authorisation and now distributes a subset of Kalshi contracts through its standalone Predict app. Its Canadian catalogue is restricted to approved financial, economic, and climate-related markets.
Because both ForecastEx and Kalshi continue to add new contracts to their respective listings, each broker will need to run an eligibility assessment on every new market before it can appear in the Canadian product feed. Under the updated display rules, simply preventing execution of a non-qualifying contract is no longer sufficient; the contract must be invisible across the entire client experience, from discovery to marketing. This places an ongoing compliance workload on both firms' product and compliance teams as the underlying exchanges expand their offerings.
For brokers eyeing the Canadian market, the message from CIRO is clear: the regulatory bar is not just about what a client can trade, but what a client can see. Any Canadian-facing interface that surfaces an unauthorised contract type—whether in a search bar, a "trending" widget, or an email newsletter—risks breaching the new display obligations.
