Polymarket lets you bet on wars, missile strikes, and how many soldiers will die. A finance professor says it is gambling, not a market, and the difference matters.

Vincent Grégoire, Canada Research Chair in Finance and Technology at HEC Montréal, says Polymarket is structured like a market but functions like gambling. You buy yes or no tokens on events. Suspicious bets on the US strike against Iran appeared the night before it happened, and a US soldier is being prosecuted not for the trades but for using confidential information connected to them. In Canada, trading on Polymarket is not legal.

Vincent Grégoire’s deeper concern is how it is marketed. The average user is expected to lose and no value is created. Wealthsimple has been approved to launch prediction markets in Canada, and that distinction is about to land right next to your investments.

Topics: Polymarket, crypto gambling, prediction markets, insider trading, Wealthsimple Canada

GUEST: Vincent Grégoire

Originally aired on2026-05-21