IG Group Sets Late 2026 Date for UK Prediction Markets

IG Group has finally put a date on its UK comeback. Late Q4 2026 is the target for a prediction market launch, and the first users will be professional investors. Retail punters get access in early 2027. Sixteen years will have passed since the company closed Extrabet, its sports unit, in 2011 and sold most of the customer list to Spreadex.

Professionals go first, with 24/5 trading on financial assets, tax-free. Sports, entertainment and politics get added when retail arrives. A UK Gambling Commission licence application is already in. All of it sits inside IG Consumer, which has spent 18 months moving its core infrastructure onto a single international platform covering CFDs, spread betting, share dealing, crypto and predictions. That platform rolls out across IG Consumer's European and Asia-Pacific markets through 2027.

Michael Healy, CEO of IG Consumer, describes the move as a shift in posture. "We see strong appetite for this product in the UK," he said. "Customers find it appealing and traffic to prediction market platforms is growing." He didn't soft-pedal the obstacle either. Two regulators split oversight in the UK, and retail customers can't trade binary options. "Despite this complexity, we have found a route to market with a regulated product that addresses this growing customer demand."

Then there's the bigger bet: the $1.1bn agreement in principle to buy Underdog, the US daily fantasy and predictions operator. No DFS launch is planned for the UK. Abroad, predictions is how IG reaches younger customers. Over 60% of Underdog's active users are under 30. The average IG customer is 42. A targeted UK marketing campaign starts next month, and Sky Sports is among the channels.

Competition is where it gets hard. A regulated gambling framework with sportsbooks and exchanges has been in place since the 1960s, and Flutter, Entain, William Hill, bet365 and Betfred all stand in the path. Group CEO Breon Corcoran won't call them direct rivals yet. "Truthfully, we won't know what the mix will look like until after we've launched a product and we've established land," he said. What IG is chasing, in his telling, is space in the consumer's mind: people who want to express a view on the world around them.

Watch the exchange comparison. UK exchange gross gambling yield has nearly halved over the past decade. Smarkets has already restyled its interface to look like a US prediction platform, and CEO Jason Trost has argued the two products are the same fruit. That's a live test of UK appetite, running right alongside IG's own research.

Tax arrives fast. General Betting Duty climbs from 15% to 25% in April 2027, landing on the predictions product soon after retail launch. Remote Gaming Duty has already doubled to 40%, though IG isn't entering iGaming yet. Healy says that after engaging multiple UK regulators, he hasn't heard discomfort about the firm running financial and gambling products side-by-side. Investors want proof. A weak Q3 update cut the full-year 2026 revenue growth outlook, and shares fell 25% over two days earlier this month.

Healy's case for mixing the two is Robinhood, which turned a sports-heavy prediction product into its fastest-growing vertical and pulled $156m from it recently. "I think customers don't always care as much as we think," he said. The number to watch is whether UK retail take-up after the early 2027 switch justifies the build. A 25% GBD rate is waiting on the other side.