PredictIt

What it is

PredictIt is a real-money market in political event contracts, open only to US persons. Shares trade between 1 and 99 cents against other traders' resting offers; the share matching the outcome redeems at $1 when the market closes and the other side pays nothing.

What separates it from every other cash venue here is that it is not a designated contract market. It runs on staff no-action relief — CFTC Letter 14-130, amended by CFTC Letter 25-20 on 14 July 2025 — permitting "a small-scale, not-for-profit market for the trading of event contracts for educational purposes." That letter moved the relief from Victoria University of Wellington to the Prediction Market Research Consortium, a US non-profit whose board of academics decides what gets listed, and recorded that PMRC may contract with a for-profit firm for day-to-day operation. Aristotle International is that firm: it does identity and age verification and clears the trades.

Two conditions in the letter are why the site looks the way it does: a per-contract investment cap, and a subject-matter restriction to political events. Both are regulatory limits rather than product decisions, which means neither is going to be relaxed by a release note.

Availability

US persons only, and the terms say so as a positive requirement rather than as a blocklist: participation is limited to individuals 18 or older who are U.S. Persons, defined as a US citizen living anywhere in the world or a resident alien. There is no non-US version to geoblock.

Age and identity verification runs through Aristotle International as clearing house, and the terms reserve the right to demand further identification before releasing funds. Once your net profit passes the US reporting threshold you must supply an SSN or ITIN; failing to means the account can be frozen for both new positions and withdrawals.

The terms name no individual states and the site publishes no state list, so the only jurisdiction distinction the card can make is the federal one. Checked against the published terms on 2026-09-19.

Pricing

Deposits are free and the minimum balance to trade is $10. The fee is charged on the way out, not on the fill:

• 10 percent of profit whenever you sell a share for more than you paid or redeem it at $1. Break-even and losing sales are not charged. On a partial sale, shares are treated as sold in the order you bought them.
• 5 percent of every withdrawal, on the full amount withdrawn rather than on the gain.
• No withdrawal at all until 30 days after your initial deposit.
• $2 per month after twelve consecutive months with no login and a positive cash balance, charged until the balance runs out.

The two percentages stack in a way worth doing the arithmetic on. Buy at 50 cents, redeem at $1, and the 10 percent takes 5 cents of the 50-cent gain; the 5 percent then comes off whatever you move to your bank, principal included. There is no maker rebate and no per-fill commission — the whole cost sits on realised profit, which is why the taker and maker fee fields on this card are None rather than a number.

Note the asymmetry: the fee is levied per profitable sale and losing sales earn nothing back, so a trader who is flat across two positions still pays on the winning one. Fee terms read on 2026-09-19.

Markets & resolution

The no-action letter restricts the market to political events — elections and other significant political questions not involving war, terrorism or assassination. The July 2025 amendment enumerates what counts: nominations, confirmations, other selections and departures of government officials; court decisions and actions not related to criminal proceedings; official actions by legislatures and legislators; issuance of regulations and executive orders; adoption of, withdrawal from or alteration of international agreements not involving war; and official actions and declarations of international agencies. No sports, no crypto prices, no entertainment, at any price.

Resolution is PredictIt's own, against the Rules published on each market page. Its own trading guide is unusually blunt about the trap: the headline question at the top of a market page only "closely approximates" the Rules, wording can differ between the two, and resolution is decided solely on the Rules. Read them before the question.

Multiple-contract markets are margined on worst-case exposure rather than face value. Holding "No" across several linked contracts, where at most one can resolve Yes, costs only what the worst outcome would cost you — and selling out of such a position can debit your cash balance rather than credit it, because closing a leg raises your remaining exposure. The site publishes a downloadable payout table per market for exactly this reason.

Integrations

There is an unauthenticated market-data endpoint at /api/marketdata/all/ that returns every open market with its contracts, last price and best bid and offer. It works, it has worked for years, and it is the reason PredictIt prices show up in so many third-party dashboards — but it appears nowhere in the site's own documentation, sitemap or support pages, so it carries no published rate limit, no versioning and no support commitment. Treat it as tolerated rather than offered.

No trading API, no websocket feed, no official SDK, and no mobile app: the site is web only.

Limitations

• $3,500 per contract, and it is a regulatory cap. It is set to the Federal Election Campaign Act individual contribution limit and moves only when the FEC adjusts that limit, every two years. Anyone wanting size is in the wrong place.
• Politics only. The subject-matter restriction is a condition of the relief, not a listing preference.
• The relief is personal to PMRC. CFTC Letter 25-20 states that the no-action positions "will not transfer to a different entity by virtue of any future sale or other transfer of operations." A venue whose permission to exist is staff relief conditioned on one named non-profit is a different kind of risk from a designated exchange. The demonstration is on the record: on 4 August 2022 the CFTC's Division of Market Oversight withdrew Letter 14-130 outright, finding that Victoria University had not operated the market in compliance with it, and ordered every open position closed out by 11:59pm ET on 15 February 2023. The relief that exists today is the amended version issued nearly three years later.
• Fees are back-loaded. Nothing costs anything until you win, and then two percentages apply in sequence. A strategy that closes positions often pays the 10 percent on each winning leg.
• Money is locked for 30 days after your first deposit, whatever happens in the market.
• No state-level statement. The terms speak only of U.S. Persons; if your state matters to you, the site will not tell you.

Alternatives

If you want political contracts at size, or contracts on anything that is not politics, a CFTC-designated exchange is the other shape of the answer: designation brings a rulebook, no $3,500 ceiling and a much wider list, at the cost of the small non-profit character that makes PredictIt's prices interesting to researchers in the first place.

If you are not a US person, PredictIt is simply closed to you and no workaround inside its terms exists — the offshore and on-chain venues in this category are the only route.