How an iGaming operator approached its prediction market launch
With the advent of prediction markets, a new major player has emerged within the world of iGaming. Whether you consider prediction markets to be part of, or at least adjacent to, betting and the wider gaming industry, their impact on the sector remains undeniable. In this article, a sportsbook executive details why and how they decided it was the time to get into the emerging sector of prediction markets.
In exclusive comments to SiGMA News, Head of Operations at SOFTSWISS Sportsbook, Alexander Kamenetskyi, and N1 Partners’ Head of Product Line, Daniil Korolko, discuss what the experience of bringing event-trading into an iGaming context has been like. N1 Partners is an iGaming affiliate programme with a focus on online casinos and sportsbooks, while N1 Bet is the first brand to go live with SOFTSWISS prediction markets.
Reaching the prediction market audience
Korolko said that, prior to prediction markets being a product one could actually launch, N1 could see the “huge demand forming outside the traditional sportsbook space,” but did not know at that point how to fully address the gap.
Kamenetskyi commented that “a legitimate, high-volume betting segment has formed entirely outside the traditional operator ecosystem,” as he remarked that “most of the industry chose to watch rather than act”.
For this group of people who follow financial markets and were politically attentive, Korolko deemed that the existing propositions did not resonate with them.
Kamenetskyi commented that these people, “who want to take a position on the events and information they follow daily,” were already spending money, but not with traditional sportsbooks.
Discussing how the iGaming industry thought of and approached this audience, Kamenetskyi commented that the dominant narrative for some time was that prediction markets were simply a crypto experiment, or a “temporary election-cycle spike.” He remarked that they were viewed as something interesting, “but ultimately peripheral to the core business,” an interpretation which he said no longer holds.
He said that monthly volume grew from $32 million in January 2024 to $12.6 billion in January 2026, “a scale shift the industry can no longer afford to dismiss”.
With this rapid and substantial development in mind, Kamenetskyi said that it could no longer be deemed a trend and that it had instead become a fully formed product category. He added that, critically, “almost none of that volume has flowed through traditional operators”.
Korolko commented that N1 also debated whether this new market could be deemed a trend or a category. He said that it was not going to invest serious operational energy into something that peaks every four years.
“Then you watch what happens after the election cycle, and the liquidity doesn’t collapse. It diversifies. Macro events, tech releases, geopolitical stuff. At some point, the debate stopped being about the product and started being about timing. That’s a different conversation.”
Why SOFTSWISS deems Fixed-Odds the right approach to prediction markets for operators
Korolko stated that what closed the conversation for N1 was a combination of things landing at once.
He said that the Polymarket numbers received mainstream coverage, and that SOFTSWISS approached N1 with the revelation that it was building Prediction Markets for iGaming and wanted N1 to be the first to go live with it.
Kamenetskyi said that the adoption of Fixed-Odds rather than replicating what exchange-style platforms are doing came down to replication of their system not being a viable strategy for operators.
He said that a pure P2P exchange requires building and sustaining liquidity from scratch on both sides of the market, which would mean introducing KYC and compliance complexity, which does not align with existing operator frameworks.
This, in turn, Kamenetskyi commented, would mean “effectively giving up control over margin and revenue predictability..
Additionally, he said that the regulatory landscape for exchange models remains “highly fragmented and uncertain across the US, the UK, and Europe”. He said that such a level of regulatory and operational exposure is “simply unjustifiable” for most established operators.
“Fixed odds is not a compromise, it is what makes prediction markets operationally viable for the B2B sportsbook model,” Kamenetskyi stated.
What this model means in practice, Kamenetskyi said, is that the player bets against the house rather than against another participant. He continued that the operator retains full control over the margin and prices markets through internal risks and trading models while managing liability within established bookmaking frameworks.
“From the player’s perspective, the experience remains simple. They take a clear position on an outcome, yes or no, without needing to understand the complex market mechanics. From the operator’s side, it fits directly within existing licensing and compliance frameworks.”
This model, he said, allows operators to expand into a new category without changing their core business model, making it scalable and commercially viable.
What’s happened since launch
One thing which has stood out since launch, according to Korolko, is engagement from players who were not active before. He said that players are coming in through prediction markets and then going on to explore the sportsbook.
Furthermore, he said that players who had been dormant and had not placed bets in weeks came back when they saw markets on things they were interested in or followed.
“We knew the product would attract new types of players. We didn’t expect it to bring back so many existing ones that had gone quiet,” he commented.
Kamenetskyi said that the patterns are already clear and are consistent across operators. “We consistently see three core effects. Player reactivation, cross-sell into sportsbooks, and a significantly lower entry barrier for casino audiences.”
Early doors and first-movers
At the category level, Kamenetskyi remarked that it is no longer a question of uncertainty, but rather a question of execution.
He commented that operators no longer need to wonder if this works, but should instead think about how effectively they can capture that value.
Korolko said that the first-mover window will not stay open at its current size. He added that, currently, there is not a crowded B2B market, and “operators aren’t choosing between ten providers”.
However, he continued that if one continues to wait until the category is “proven beyond all doubt,” then they would be waiting until their competitors are already live and the players are already elsewhere.
Kamenetskyi remarked that the question of whether this is a “real product category” was settled some time ago, and that the real question now is about which operators will build brand recognition in communities that have never engaged with a betting brand before.
That kind of recognition, he said, is not built through a product launch, but is instead built by being present as those audiences are still forming and defining their habits. “By the time the category feels ‘safe’, the first-mover advantage is already gone, and the audience is already captured.”
Regulation and uncertainty
All in all, the main question with regard to prediction markets and how operators are weighing their options seems to come down to regulatory uncertainty.
Certain regions and countries have been making progress towards establishing a framework for prediction markets, while others, such as Malta, have simply indicated an interest in doing so.
In the view of Kamenetskyi, “the uncertainty lies in the speed of that process,” which he added directly impacts how quickly the category can scale across regulated markets.
With that said, he commented that this does not affect the viability of the model but rather affects the pace of expansion. He said that operators who move early can capture value while regulation continues to catch up.
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