IG Group CEO Breon Corcoran has suggested that a Supreme Court decision on the legality of prediction markets is approaching “sooner than we might have anticipated”.
The retail brokerage firm announced its acquisition of DFS and prediction markets platform Underdog in July, in a deal worth up to $1.3bn (£960m).
Prior to the announcement, Underdog debuted its in-house exchange to power its prediction market offering, months after snapping up CFTC-regulated DCM and derivatives clearing organisation (DCO) Aristotle Exchange for an undisclosed fee.
Speaking during an IG Group investor update, Corcoran said the company would be left in a good position even if a potential Supreme Court verdict outlawed sports prediction markets, echoing similar statements made by DraftKings boss Jason Robins last month.
Corcoran remarked: “It’s too early to say what will happen with the US Supreme Court. Since we announced the deal, there has been an awful lot of news, legal and political. We were expecting a lot of noise and there has been plenty.
“One of the things that has changed since then is the split court decision, which looks like it will be an accelerant to getting a US Supreme Court judgment. End-state certainty is probably coming sooner than we might have anticipated. I think that is a good thing.
“Irrespective of the US Supreme Court outcome, we will have a customer base of around five million depositing customers, typically males aged 20-40 who are interested in sport that we know are also trading on other asset classes.”
In August, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Nevada in its legal battle against Kalshi, ruling that the federal Commodity Exchange Act doesn’t prevent states from regulating sports event contracts.
This contradicted a verdict handed down by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in April, which ruled that the state of New Jersey didn’t have the authority to intervene with sports event contracts being offered in the Garden State.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport subsequently called on the Supreme Court to intervene, once and for all.
In a trading update released earlier this month, IG Group revealed revenue fell 14% to £240m in the three months ending 30 September 2026.
Meanwhile, Underdog’s revenue during that time period increased more than 100% year on year to roughly $105m.
Underdog also reported handle per customer was up 165%, average deposits per customer increased 109% and monthly actives jumped 13%. Bosses highlighted the caveat of the World Cup landing during the reporting period as a significant boost.
Either or
During the results call, Underdog co-founder Jeremy Levine outlined the company’s plans should sports event contracts be taken off the table in the US, insisting the DFS side of the business was still core and that a return to online sports betting could be an option.
He said: “If the Supreme Court does defer authority back to the states, we’ll shift predominantly all of our sports flow back to fantasy sports and the DFS regulatory framework.
“We surrendered licences in seven states recently. We did that because in conversations with those regulators, they are not fans of prediction markets and if we wanted to offer them, they would have preferred that we’re also not offering fantasy in those states.
“In six of those seven states, we only offered our Drafts game. While we love the Drafts product and the community that comes with it, it is a very low immaterial piece of our revenue mix.
“Would we go into regulated OSB? That’s absolutely a question we’ll answer and evaluate, and we certainly have the capabilities to do so if that is what’s best for our business. We feel really well set up for any outcome.”
When discussing the saturated exchange market, with the likes of Kalshi, Polymarket and a host of OSB firms now in the space, Corcoran drew on his previous experience with Betfair to illustrate there’s more than one way to determine success for such platforms.
“Some of us have experience from the Betfair Exchange days,” the CEO continued. “While important – liquidity is very important – liquidity does not necessarily predetermine success, so we think there will be multiple exchanges.
“We have considerable experience of operating in regulated financial markets where things like best execution are core to the product offer. As this market evolves over the coming months and years, we will bring some capabilities to the table to bolster the incredible customer centricity and product velocity that Underdog brings.
“It can be dangerous to be seduced by all the similarities, but I think there’s a probable end state where customers express opinions, and they get filled through a selection of exchanges where there’s a varying mix of market makers depending on what customers are expressing an opinion on.
“That resonates a bit with putting a sportsbook on top of the exchange at Betfair where we were able to offer different products to differentiate ourselves from exchanges because we had product flexibility and promotional flexibility that people who operate in one tech stack don’t have.
“In terms of opportunity for IG, while these are enormous markets, we can transform the prospects for IG shareholders by being an active, growing, profitable part of them. I do think this is not going to be a winner-take-all situation – there will be multiple winners in the coming years.”
The post IG Group CEO: Prediction markets clarity “coming sooner than we might have anticipated” first appeared on EGR Intel.
Breon Corcoran insists the firm is prepared if the Supreme Court rules negatively on sports event contracts, while highlighting “liquidity does not necessarily predetermine success” in a saturated exchange market
The post IG Group CEO: Prediction markets clarity “coming sooner than we might have anticipated” first appeared on EGR Intel.