Wealthsimple Predict launches this summer. Research shows most prediction market traders lose money – here is what advisors need to know before clients ask
Wealthsimple Inc. is launching a prediction market trading app this summer. It will reach four million Canadian clients.
For financial advisors, the product itself is less important than what follows: clients asking whether they should use it.
The academic evidence on prediction markets is not encouraging for retail participants. A March 2026 preprint study by researchers at ESSEC Business School, HEC Montréal, and the University of Toronto studied 1.4 million Polymarket users. It covered US$20 billion in trading volume.
The study found that 70.8 per cent of users ended the study period in the red. The top 1 per cent of traders captured 84 per cent of all gains. The median user lost US$2 overall, across trades from November 2022 to March 2026.
What clients will be able to do
The new app, Wealthsimple Predict, is powered by Kalshi, a US-based prediction market platform. A beta version is already running. The full launch is set for summer 2026.
How it works: clients buy contracts priced under $1. Each contract represents a position on whether a specified outcome will occur. A correct call pays out on every contract held.
Wealthsimple is limiting the product to economic, financial, and climate events such as Bank of Canada rate decisions, inflation data, climate benchmarks, and similar. Sports and politics are excluded.
That scope mirrors the model used by Interactive Brokers Canada Inc. – the only CIRO-authorized firm offering event contracts to Canadian clients before Wealthsimple.
Why the data should inform advisor conversations
Charles Martineau, an associate professor of finance at the University of Toronto and a co-author of the Polymarket study, was direct: “Unless you’re very lucky or extremely good at forecasting, your expectation of making money is zero,” he told The Globe and Mail in April 2026.
Martineau said Wealthsimple was wise to restrict trading to lower-profile topics. That limits the product’s appeal and reduces the risk of clients adopting gambling-like behaviours.
Advisors working with clients drawn to the product have a relevant data point to raise. The Polymarket study covers a platform where the most active, sophisticated traders participate globally. Wealthsimple’s retail base in Canada will not, on average, be more sophisticated than that pool.
Advisors can also draw on a straightforward reframing for client conversations. They can help clients position portfolios to perform across a range of outcomes. That is a stronger frame than wagering on any single Bank of Canada decision.
What the eligibility screen looks like
Wealthsimple will require clients to be employed and meet an income threshold before accessing the product.
“If the customer is a student and unemployed, they would not have access,” said Swapnil Parikh, Wealthsimple’s vice-president of investing products.
The company did not disclose the specific income threshold or the questions it will ask during screening. New clients must also complete a Know Your Client process.
Blair Wiley, Wealthsimple’s chief legal officer, said the firm’s approach is to inform rather than restrict. He drew a comparison to the company’s crypto product rollout: critics expected clients to take on excessive risk, but actual behaviour was more measured.
“The actual evidence did not show that at all,” Wiley said. “People were buying very small amounts of crypto assets alongside all of their other investments.”
Whether prediction market behaviour follows the same pattern is not yet known.
The regulatory gaps advisors should note
The CIRO authorized two firms to offer event contracts as of March 26, 2026: Interactive Brokers Canada and Wealthsimple. The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) and CIRO have said they are continuing to review the terms and conditions for these products.
The Ontario Securities Commission has banned Polymarket in Ontario for regulatory infractions, in a settlement reached in 2025. That ban runs until 2027. Other provinces have permitted it.
CIRO’s framework for crypto asset trading platforms included exposure limits, eligibility screening, and client-loss limits. No equivalent guardrails have been publicly announced for prediction market products. The CSA and CIRO said in April 2026 that terms and conditions for these products remain under review. They may be subject to change.
For advisors, that gap is worth tracking. The terms and conditions CIRO set for event contract trading may change – and any tightening could affect what clients can access and how.
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