Matchbook Begins UK Rollout as It Positions for a US Prediction Market Entry
Kalshi and Polymarket will quickly should make room for a new participant within the prediction marketspace.
Matchbook, a sports activities betting alternate, will debut its prediction market in January 2026, based on Bloomberg. Ronan McDonagh, the corporate’s interim chief govt officer, stated that Matchbook plans to “highway take a look at” its know-how within the United Kingdom earlier than increasing to the US in March.
As a “betting alternate,” Matchbook capabilities by matching patrons and sellers. Typically, sportsbooks take the alternative facet of the client’s wager; betting exchanges set two prospects betting towards one another. The home (on this case, the platform) takes a small payment for the alternate, and the vig (i.e., the vigorish, or the lower) is normally smaller for every wager.
Because Matchbook is a betting alternate, it’s already set to dive into the prediction markets house. Instead of displaying the contracts in fractional odds (e.g., 2:1), it can shift to a share of likelihood for a “sure” or “no” end result.
“It’s not new within the sense that it really works on the identical engine as an alternate,” McDonagh informed Bloomberg. “It ought to be extra comprehensible, so I feel we’re hopeful that it captures a new viewers or it intrigues folks to have a look.”
Matchbook (Triplebet Ltd., registered within the British dependency of Guernsey) has been working as a sports activities alternate for 20 years. It’s presently majority-owned by Zeljko Ranogajec, a mysterious skilled gambler initially from Australia.
Ranogajec was within the information lately. In April, the Wall Street Journal named him as one of many key gamers in a 2023 operation that netted a 57 million greenback Texas Lottery jackpot. Ranogajec has a repute as a “Joker” within the betting world for his capacity to “pull off this type of stunt in far-flung casinos and at racetracks world wide,” based on the WSJ.
Matchbook’s U.S. companion, RSBIX LLC, filed the paperwork with the CFTC again in September. RSBIX is presently led by Jeff Ifrah, one among President Donald Trump’s former protection attorneys.
Kalshi and Polymarket haven’t been cleared to function within the U.Okay., so the launch of Matchbook’s new platform will gauge the temperature and see whether or not American enthusiasm for prediction markets has hit Britain.
McDonagh stated that the corporate is prepared to companion with a acknowledged model when it launches within the States. “We’re not sentimental about entering into as Matchbook,” he informed Bloomberg. “We’ve been within the alternate enterprise so lengthy, and we’ve bought a actually sturdy tech platform. We’ve bought sturdy market-making companions, liquidity and a nice product. We’ll be capable of compete on day one within the US.”
The publish Matchbook Begins UK Rollout as It Positions for a US Prediction Market Entry appeared first on DeFi Rate.
