Betting on the outcome of elections is illegal in Canada but there is still more than US$400,000 wagered on who will become the mayor of Toronto on a prediction platform that is currently banned in Ontario.
As of late Monday afternoon, approximately US$426,000 had been wagered on the outcome of the Toronto mayoral election on Polymarket.
Polymarket, it should be noted, is currently serving out a two-year ban in Ontario after its former and current operators were found to have violated the province’s security law in April 2025.
On Kalshi, another prediction market platform, more than US$46,000 had been wagered on who will win the mayoral election on Oct. 26.
Users can also bet on other election outcomes throughout Ontario. For the Mississauga election more than $24,000 had been wagered as of Monday afternoon.
Polymarket and Kalshi both allow traders to buy and sell binary “yes” or “no” contracts speculating on the outcome of real-world events, including elections.
While there is nothing preventing the platforms from allowing their users to bet on the outcome of elections anywhere around the world, Canadians are not allowed to participate as the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO), a self-regulatory organization overseeing trading activity, has introduced significant restrictions on prediction markets.
In March of this year, it authorized two platforms to engage in prediction trading: Wealthsimple and Interactive Brokers Canada Inc.
It also limited the events investors can trade on to economic forecasts, environment forecasts, and financial indicators.
Andreas Park, a finance professor at Rotman College, says anyone from anywhere can theoretically use a virtual private network (VPN) to access Polymarket and place a wager.
“You basically pretend that you’re in a different country,” Park said.
Park said that “it is hard to say” whether there has been a significant increase in people betting on the outcome of Canadian elections on prediction platforms. He said that it is something that he saw was transpiring during the last federal election, so it isn’t necessarily new.
When asked about the betting on these platforms, mayoral candidate Olivia Chow reiterated Polymarket’s ban in the province.
“We discourage Torontonians from using the site,” Chow’s Press Secretary Braman Thillainathan said in a statement. “The only poll that matters is on election day.”
Brad Bradford, the other frontrunning candidate for mayor, commented on the wagers at an unrelated news conference last week. He said he is not engaged “in any of that.”
“I guess that’s happening, I don’t even think that’s legal in this province, but that’s kind of out of my jurisdiction,” Bradford told reporters. “What I would say is if you want change in the city, you have to change the mayor and the best way, and in fact the only way to do that, is to go out and participate in this great democratic process.”
In a statement, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), a Crown agency that enforces securities legislation in Ontario, said it “expects all parties subject to its orders and settlement agreements to comply with their obligations.”
A spokesperson for Polymarket, meanwhile, said users in restricted jurisdictions are prohibited from trading on its global platform or using tools, like VPN, to circumvent their geographic restrictions.
“Polymarket maintains compliance and market integrity measures designed to detect and address prohibited activity on the platform, including unauthorized access from restricted jurisdictions and other violations of its terms of service,” the statement reads.
