ADAMS: Canada must ban betting on our elections
During last year's mayoral race in New York City, I went on Polymarket and put $15 on Curtis Sliwa. It was a long shot, and of course he did not win. I mention it only because the experience stuck with me. Scrolling through Polymarket this week, I've seen the prediction market bet on everything from election results to wildfire acreage. What began as idle curiosity quickly became something more troubling.
Today, Canadians can still find their way onto these platforms, often through VPNs (as I did), and wager real money on the outcome of elections, the spread of wildfires, or the next extreme weather event. In Ontario, the securities regulator has temporarily blocked Polymarket after finding it offered prohibited short-term binary contracts. Other provinces have followed with restrictions of their own.
Yet the activity continues, and the risks to our democratic process remain largely unaddressed at the national level. Prediction markets present themselves as sophisticated tools for aggregating information. In theory, people with genuine insight put capital behind their forecasts, and the resulting prices reflect our collective wisdom. In practice, especially on political questions, the picture is less tidy.
Thin markets can be moved by a determined handful of traders. A sudden spike in a candidate's odds generates headlines and social media chatter that ordinary voters may treat as meaningful. Most Canadians are not sophisticated traders; many are bandwagon voters who respond to perceived momentum. When market prices are treated as authoritative signals, distorted or thinly traded contracts can shape turnout and preferences in ways that have nothing to do with policy or character.
There is a darker possibility as well; anyone with operational access to an election—volunteers, temporary staff, even local officials could in theory develop a financial interest in a particular result. Existing criminal law already prohibits fraud and tampering, but that does not mean we should casually introduce new financial incentives into the process. The same logic applies to wildfires.
Canada has already drawn sensible lines on prediction markets. Regulated domestic platforms may offer contracts on economic indicators, financial markets, and certain climate metrics. Political events and sports are off-limits. That is a good start, but it is not enough. Offshore platforms and VPN workarounds mean determined users can still place bets on Canadian elections, and referendums enforcement from individual provinces is uneven, resulting in a grey market that undermines the integrity we claim to protect.
Some will argue that adults should be free to express probabilistic beliefs with their own money, and that markets can sometimes outperform or underperform polls. Both points have merit in the abstract. Democracy, however, is not an ordinary market. The franchise belongs to Canadian equally, not to those with deeper pockets or cleverer algorithms. Treating election outcomes as tradable assets risks cheapening the process in the eyes of the public and eroding the trust that our institutions require to function.
I do not favour heavy-handed regulations for their own sake, yet when the private sector creates new incentives that touch the core of our democratic system, Parliament has an obligation to respond. A clear federal prohibition on prediction-market apps in Canada would close many remaining gaps and send an unambiguous signal that the integrity of the ballot is not a speculative commodity.
Existing securities and gaming frameworks could also be strengthened to support enforcement, while still permitting carefully supervised contracts on non-political subjects.
We have seen what happens when trust in elections frays. Polarization deepens, conspiracy theories flourish, and the willingness to accept legitimate election results declines. Prediction markets are not the sole cause of these problems, but they are a needless accelerant. Canadians deserve a system in which the only “odds” that matter are those decided at the ballot, not those set by anonymous traders chasing a payout.
The modest wager I placed a year ago was harmless enough on its own, but scaling that impulse into a multibillion-dollar industry that flirts with the outcomes of democratic contests is another matter entirely. It is time for Ottawa to draw a firm line.
This piece was written by an individual contributor and reflects the editorial position of The Provincial Times. Read our Content Policy here.
