What to use instead of Intrade

The product

Intrade was an exchange in Dublin, run by Intrade the Prediction Market Limited, where members bought and sold contracts on whether something would happen and the price was read as the crowd's probability that it would. Its home page in October 2012 called it "the world's leading prediction market", put the platform's start at 2001, and led with the US election: its exchange news that week announced a market on whether Todd Akin would withdraw from the Senate race in Missouri and clarified the rules of the markets on the combination of president and Congress after the 2012 elections. Around the markets sat what a trading venue carries — a forum, an API, a mobile interface, a practice mode, published reports and a data section aimed at academics — and a flat $4.99 a month offered as "effective free" active trading.

How it ended, with dates. On 26 November 2012 the CFTC charged Intrade and Trade Exchange Network Limited with offering commodity options to US customers off-exchange, in breach of its ban on such trading. By March 2013 the site's footer said that Intrade did not permit customers in the United States to use its trading service.

On 10 March 2013 the board posted a notice that, "due to circumstances recently discovered", it must "immediately cease trading activity". It said the circumstances "may include financial irregularities" which Irish law obliged the directors to act on, and listed the three things it had done: stopped trading, settled every open position and calculated each member's settled balance, and stopped all banking transactions. Contracts were closed at fair market value as of the close of business that day; members could log in and see their balances, and could not be paid them until the investigations concluded. A second notice on 24 March said the company's bank accounts remained frozen and that the investigations should conclude by 5 April.

On 5 April the company reported a cash shortfall of about $700,000 between the money it held and members' balances, and asked members with more than $1,000 to agree to a "forbearance" arrangement so that it could stay solvent. On 30 April it said enough had agreed. Withdrawals of the funds not covered by that arrangement reopened by bank wire in May 2013 — for non-US accounts from 8 May, for US accounts from 20 May.

Trading never came back. On 24 June 2014 the chief executive, Ron Bernstein, wrote that it "appears very unlikely now that Intrade will resume trading services in the way it had operated previously", and set the clock for the money: request a full withdrawal, with anti-money-laundering identification, by 31 July 2014 — a date later changed to 15 August in the same notice — or pay a $240 administration fee on whatever was left after 31 July, and every remaining account would be liquidated by 31 December 2014.

This page records 10 March 2013 as the end, because that is the date the company's own notices of 10 March 2013 and 24 June 2014 both give for the last trade.

What to use instead

Nothing replaces it whole, because Intrade was one book that, until late 2012, members inside and outside the US traded together. That book has since split by jurisdiction, so the first question is where you are.

If you are in the US and traded elections, the economy and the news, Kalshi is the nearest thing in shape: an order book, dollar settlement, and categories that run from politics and macro data to culture and business. It is a CFTC-designated contract market — the kind of registered exchange that, the CFTC said when it sued Intrade in 2012, contracts like these must be listed on to be offered to US customers. It also takes members from many countries, but its member agreement restricts 55 jurisdictions, and Ireland — where Intrade was — is one of them, as are the United Kingdom, France and Italy.

If you are outside the US, Polymarket is the broad question list on an order book that Intrade was in its last months, closed to the US as Intrade was by then. Its own help page restricts 39 countries by where you are physically standing, not where you live, and fully blocks Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy among them, so check that list before anything else. The working differences are custody and money. You hold the funds in your own wallet rather than in an account a board can freeze, and you settle in crypto rather than in dollars. Outcomes are decided by the UMA oracle, not by the operator. Kalshi against Polymarket sets the two side by side.

If what you traded was US politics and nothing else, PredictIt is the market that is built for it: political contracts in dollars, run by a non-profit under CFTC no-action relief, open only to US persons — US citizens wherever they live, and resident aliens. The cap of $3,500 per contract and the 10 percent it takes from each profit make it a different instrument for anyone who traded size on Intrade.

What you give up

One book for the whole world. An American and a European could once take opposite sides of the same Intrade contract. Today the US and international books are separate even under one brand: Polymarket runs two exchanges with no shared order book, Kalshi excludes 55 jurisdictions, and PredictIt takes US persons only. A price on any one of them is the price of its own members, not of everybody who has a view.

Any venue at all, if you are in Ireland or much of western Europe. Intrade was an Irish company that took members there. Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and Italy are on Kalshi's restricted list and on Polymarket's fully blocked list, and PredictIt takes only US persons, so for a reader in Dublin who is not a US citizen none of the three picks will open a position. Why a venue is unavailable where you are explains why the lists move.

The price history. In 2012 the site's footer linked to reports, statistics and a data section for academics. Those went with the exchange, and the domain today serves no data. If your work cites Intrade prices, the series is whatever you, or the paper you read, downloaded before March 2013.

Migration notes

There is nothing to carry across. Every open position was settled on 10 March 2013 at the company's fair-value price, so there is no contract to move and no market to finish trading. The deadline for withdrawal requests was 15 August 2014. We found no notice from the company after the one of 24 June 2014 saying what became of balances nobody claimed.

Every replacement charges by the trade, not by the month. Intrade advertised a flat $4.99 a month in October 2012. Kalshi and Polymarket charge takers a fee on each trade, and PredictIt takes a share of each profit. What a trade actually costs prices those per contract.

Identity checks are not new, but the documents are different. Intrade's 2014 notice says it had required anti-money-laundering identification since July 2012. Kalshi and PredictIt verify identity at signup under US rules; Polymarket asks for none at signup, and in exchange it is not available to US persons at all. What you have to prove to trade has each venue's list.

Where the money sits is the part of the ending that can happen again. From 10 March to May 2013 Intrade's members could see settled balances and not withdraw them, and those who signed the forbearance arrangement could then withdraw only the part it did not cover. Where the money sits while a position is open, and who can stop it leaving, is set out in how money gets out.