Wealthsimple’s new prediction markets app shows Canadian users popular markets, such as who will win the 2028 US presidential election, even if the company can’t let users bet on them due to Canadian laws. Experts suspect the approach is “teasing” Canadians in a bid they will pressure regulators to loosen the rules.
I always knew they were into this kind of thing considering how much they shill for crypto, private equity, direct indexing, leverage, option trading… literally every product offered beyond the basic ability to buy ETFs is a scam. The financial industry is by and large financed by scams. We had old school scams like selling trash mutual funds to retirees (TD style), and we have new scams like Private Equity where you get “exclusive” access to trash mutual funds. And now instead of getting people addicted to gambling with stock options, they are straight up aiming for regular gambling with prediction markets.
I’m disappointed but not really surprised. If anything, I’m thankful they made it a separate App instead of shoving it into the main Wealthsimple App, at least for now.