Plus500 (LON: PLUS) has added CFTC-regulated sports event-based contracts to its US prediction markets offering, the latest move in a steady build-out that has seen the FTSE 250-listed fintech quietly become core infrastructure for America's fastest-growing retail trading category.
Sports Contracts Are Lucrative
The London-listed broker now offers Kalshi’s sports-event-based contracts, covering NFL, NBA, MLB, and more, through its Plus500 Futures platform, the proprietary US retail brand it has used to push deeper into prediction markets since early 2026.
The addition of sports contracts followed Plus500's launch of prediction market contracts last February. The company initially went live with its Kalshi-powered prediction markets covering economic, financial, and geopolitical events.
Its entry into the sector occurred a few months earlier, when it was appointed as the clearing partner for CME Group and FanDuel's joint event-contracts platform.
“The launch of sports event-based contracts, CFTC-regulated financial instruments available through our proprietary futures trading platform, is the direct result of our technological capabilities and the infrastructure we have built,” said David Zruia, Chief Executive Officer of Plus500.
The World Cup Brings Money and Popularity
The timing of the launch is also crucial, as it coincided with the ongoing football World Cup.
The World Cup winner market on PolyMarket, Kalshi’s offshore competitor, already attracted over $3 billion in trading volume. Notably, the platform has separate markets for individual World Cup games, which are also attracting millions of dollars in trades.
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“Spanning NFL, NBA, MLB and beyond, this is one of the most engaging and fast-moving spaces in financial markets today, and Plus500 is now fully part of it,” Zruia added.
Interestingly, prediction markets in the US sit at a regulatory and cultural crossroads: they are CFTC-regulated financial instruments, but their closest consumer analogue is sports betting, a sector worth tens of billions of dollars annually and with established, deeply engaged user bases.
Plus500, meanwhile, posted $242.1 million in revenue in Q1 2026, up 18% year-on-year, and raised its full-year 2026 guidance shortly after. Sports prediction markets represent a new addressable audience entirely, rather than incremental growth from existing trader segments. So, the impact of it remains to be seen in its next financial results.
