1.4M+ Customers. A UK Gambling Licence Application. Breon Corcoran Takes IG Group Into Prediction Markets
IG Group has applied for a UK gambling licence and confirmed plans to launch prediction markets, signalling that one of the country’s largest retail trading firms intends to compete in territory that has long belonged to licensed betting operators. The company set out the move at its Capital Markets Event, framing it as part of a wider strategy to build a platform at what it calls the convergence of trading, investing and entertainment. For the gambling market, the detail that matters is simple: a well-funded new name with more than 1.4 million existing customers is heading towards the sector.
Why IG Group’s gambling licence application matters now
IG is not a start-up testing the water. It is a FTSE 100 financial technology company (LSEG:IGG) that already serves over 1.4 million customers across its IG, tastytrade, Freetrade, Independent Reserve and IG Prime brands. When a business of that size applies for a UK gambling licence, it arrives with capital, a trading audience and an acquisition engine already in place. The company reported that organic active customers rose 17% year-on-year in Q3 2026, even as group total revenue fell 14% year-on-year to £240.5 million. That contrast helps explain the timing: IG is adding customers faster than it is adding revenue per customer, and prediction markets give it new products to sell into a growing base. The read here is editorial, but the figures behind it come straight from IG’s own disclosure.
What IG’s prediction markets and Underdog plans actually involve
IG set out a clear sequence. Financial prediction markets will launch in Q4 2026 for UK professional clients. The company has applied for a UK gambling licence and expects to broaden its markets to include politics, entertainment and sports in early 2027. Supporting that direction is IG’s proposed acquisition of Underdog, which the company describes as a US fantasy sports and prediction markets operator, and which is on track to complete in late 2026 or early 2027. Alongside this, IG has reorganised into three divisions, IG Consumer, IG Securities and tastytrade, and says its unified proposition bringing trading, investing and crypto onto a single platform is now live in the UK.
The Catch: IG Group Has Applied, Not Secured, Its Gambling Licence
The most important word in this story is “applied”. IG has applied for a UK gambling licence; it has not been granted one, and the company’s broader entertainment and sports markets are stated as an expectation for early 2027, not a confirmed launch. The redomicile of the group to Jersey and the Underdog acquisition are both described as proposed and subject to conditions, including Court approval and deal completion. Guidance figures quoted by IG are the company’s own forward-looking expectations. None of this is guaranteed, and the gambling-licence process in particular sits with the regulator, not with IG. Readers and operators should treat the 2026 and 2027 dates as the company’s plan rather than settled fact.
What Does This Mean for the Regulated Gaming Market?
The entry of a FTSE 100 trading firm into prediction markets points to a market where the boundary between financial speculation and regulated betting continues to blur. If IG secures its licence and delivers on its 2027 timeline, UK operators may find themselves competing not only with each other but with trading platforms that can cross-sell betting-style products to millions of existing account holders. The significance is less about one launch and more about the type of competitor it represents. The convergence IG describes is, for the gaming sector, a reminder that the next serious rival may not come from within gambling at all.
Source: IG Group
