Predict Street gets Gibraltar’s first prediction market licence
Table of contents
- Gibraltar has issued its first prediction market licence to Predict Street Ltd under the territory’s existing 2005 Gambling Act.
- The operator claims to be the official prediction market partner of the 2026 Fifa World Cup, with a platform launch set for 9 April.
- Minister Nigel Feetham framed the move as a direct response to UK gambling tax increases that threaten to push effective tax rates on Gibraltar-based operators to between 80 and 100%.
Gibraltar has become the first European jurisdiction to licence a prediction market operator, with Minister for Justice, Trade and Industry Nigel Feetham announcing the development in parliament on 1 April.
According to Gibraltar’s gambling licence register, Predict Street Ltd was licensed as a betting intermediary on 26 March under the 2005 Gambling Act. The territory says further details on the licensing process and its plans for the vertical will follow in the coming days.
Record turnaround
Feetham told parliament:
“A new licence has been issued, not withstanding that the new Gambling Act had not yet been brought into force and the new licence had to be issued under the previous legislation. This represents record timing for the issuing of a regulatory licence in Gibraltar.”
The speed of the licence shows a clear strategic push. Gibraltar’s new Gambling Bill passed parliament in March 2026, and Feetham noted that the UK market currently accounts for around 75% of gross revenues in the territory’s gambling sector.
Remote Gaming Duty, applied to online casino games, poker and bingo, rose from 21 to 40% on 1 April 2026, making it among the highest rates in the world. Online betting duty will follow, rising from 15 to 25% in April 2027.
Modelling cited by Feetham indicates the combined effective tax rate on Gibraltar-based operators’ profits could climb from 60 to 65% to as high as 80 to 100%. The sector accounts for approximately 30% of Gibraltar’s GDP, employs more than 3,400 people, and generates around one-third of public tax receipts.
Feetham said of prediction markets:
“We expect this to be a substantial area of growth for Gibraltar.”
He added that since the duty increases, he had taken more direct personal responsibility for promoting Gibraltar’s regulatory offering internationally, including attending ICE Barcelona in January and Consensus Hong Kong.
Predict Street and the World Cup
Predict Street’s website, Predictstreet.io, claims to be the official prediction market partner of the Fifa World Cup 2026, with a countdown to platform launch on 9 April.
The operator is registered at the Madison Building in Midtown, Gibraltar, and its platform is powered by Abu Dhabi-based blockchain provider ADI Chain.
This claim appears on the Predictstreet.io site and is pending FIFA confirmation. The website displays a licence number and describes early access as open, though no live trading platform was available at time of publication.
Europe slow to act
Gibraltar’s move places it ahead of the rest of the continent, with no other European jurisdiction having directly licensed a prediction market operator.
Across much of Europe, prediction markets are treated either as illegal gambling or as unlicensed financial instruments, with no dedicated regulatory frameworks in place.
Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands and Poland have all moved to block access to Polymarket, arguing the platform offers gambling services without a licence. Under Dutch law, licensed betting is effectively limited to sports and horse racing, placing event-based markets outside permitted scope entirely.
In the UK, the Gambling Commission confirmed in February that prediction market operators require a betting intermediary licence to serve British consumers, treating them as functionally identical to betting exchanges.
Malta is the only jurisdiction moving in a similar direction, though no licences have been issued. Economy Minister Silvio Schembri confirmed in late March that the government is studying how to regulate prediction markets, describing the sector as the next big opportunity for the country’s digital economy. Any Maltese framework would require new legislation, which remains at an exploratory stage.
For operators in the sector, Gibraltar’s willingness to issue a licence under legacy legislation, before its updated Gambling Act has come into force, signals a regulatory appetite that rivals in Malta have so far only discussed.
With the territory under acute fiscal pressure and UK duty rates now live, the prediction markets vertical represents one of the clearest near-term growth levers available to the Rock.
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