Australia’s current position is that prediction markets are not operating as licensed financial markets, according to an ASIC-operated Moneysmart guidance snippet, which also warns that offshore users may miss key Australian protections. The supplied flash separately says ASIC chair Sarah Court told a parliamentary hearing that these markets are closer to gambling than investments and that no operator has applied for an Australian licence.

Australia’s current position on prediction markets

The clearest supported conclusion is that prediction markets are not currently licensed to operate as financial markets in Australia. A supplied snippet from ASIC-operated Moneysmart says no prediction market operators are licensed as financial markets to operate in the country, and adds that users of unlicensed offshore platforms cannot access protections such as internal dispute resolution and client-money safeguards.

This provides a more concrete answer than the broader gambling-versus-investment framing alone. The supplied guidance indicates that Australians using these platforms do so outside the protections normally associated with licensed domestic financial services.

The supplied flash goes further, attributing to Sarah Court the view expressed at a parliamentary hearing that prediction markets are closer to gambling than financial investment products, and saying any future application would face strict scrutiny. However, the materials provided do not include a matching hearing transcript or official ASIC record for that specific event. Separately, supplied ABC snippets from August 2026 attribute similar public warnings to ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland, including that no business held a licence to operate a prediction market in Australia and that no application had been submitted to ASIC.

Licensing status and enforcement at a glance

The supplied materials point to a division between ASIC’s investor-protection warning role and ACMA’s gambling-enforcement role.

Why Polymarket was blocked and who acted

The supplied enforcement record identifies the Australian Communications and Media Authority, not ASIC, as the authority behind the Polymarket access action. A supplied ACMA investigation-register snippet says ACMA sent Polymarket a formal warning on 2025-07-02 and later requested internet service providers to block access.

In the same snippet, ACMA describes Polymarket as a cryptocurrency-based prediction market that allows users to bet yes or no on event outcomes. The snippet says ACMA found a link to Australian customers and identified prohibited and unlicensed interactive-gambling services, while also stating that no Australian state or territory licence had been issued for the Polymarket service.

This distinction is important to understanding Australia’s stance. ASIC-linked guidance, based on the supplied Moneysmart snippet, concerns licensing and the lack of investor protections for offshore users. The Polymarket blocking record, by contrast, falls under ACMA’s gambling-enforcement remit. The current picture is therefore not simply that prediction markets are treated as ordinary investment products with an open domestic licensing route. Rather, the supplied materials place them outside the licensed financial-market framework, while at least one major platform has also faced gambling-law enforcement.