ADI Predictstreet Goes Live Days Before the World Cup, and the Questions Are Just as Live as the Platform

Key Points

• ADI Predictstreet went live on 8 June 2026, three days before the FIFA World Cup 2026 opens on 11 June, ending months of questions over whether the platform could deliver on its role as FIFA’s official predictions partner.
• US distribution runs through Fanatics Markets under a CFTC-regulated derivatives framework, giving the platform access to 23 states including Texas and California where licensed sportsbooks cannot operate.
• Chainlink has been confirmed as the platform’s exclusive oracle infrastructure, automating market creation, resolution, and settlement using official FIFA data.

Three days. That is how much runway ADI Predictstreet gave itself before the FIFA World Cup 2026 opened in Mexico City on 11 June. The platform went live on 8 June, and for a company that had been wearing the badge of FIFA’s official prediction market partner since early April, the gap between the title and a working product had been impossible to ignore.

This firm got its Gibraltar license in late March 2026, thus becoming the first prediction market operator ever to obtain the Betting Intermediary license in any part of Europe. The license was obtained from Gibraltar, which introduced its Gambling Act of 2005 in this year’s Gambling Act of 2025. Two days later, FIFA announced a long-term partnership agreement with ADI Predictstreet, marking its entry as the first-ever prediction market partner of FIFA in its commercial history.

The Badge Came First. The Platform Came Much Later

FIFA President Gianni Infantino threw his weight behind the deal when it was announced. “FIFA is committed to continually enhancing the fan experience and embracing innovation that brings supporters closer to the game,” he said. “By partnering with FIFA, ADI Predictstreet will be introducing an exciting new way for fans around the world to engage with football, using insight and interaction to deepen their connection with our competitions.” It was the kind of statement that closes press releases. What followed over the next two months was rather less tidy.

The vision was polished. The product was not. Screenshots from mid-April showed markets on the platform with zero trading activity, sitting empty. By late May, audiences in the United Kingdom could not load the site at all. For a company holding FIFA’s official predicted partner status and actively announcing a global distribution deal with DAZN at the same time, that was a difficult picture.

According to corporate filing reports, the license was granted only nine days after incorporation by the discretionary judgment of the justice minister. The gambling regulator of Gibraltar, Andrew Lyman, fired back against the press, claiming that the coverage was sensationalist and that the licensing process had been conducted comprehensively despite its swiftness.

When SBC News pressed the company directly in late May, ADI Predictstreet acknowledged the situation. It had been running a controlled beta. “ADI Predictstreet is currently in beta testing with a select group of users to ensure it meets the high standards expected by both our audiences and partners,” the company said. “As we prepare for a broader rollout around the FIFA World Cup 2026, where ADI Predictstreet will serve as the tournament’s official prediction market partner, our focus is on delivering engaging, innovative forecasting experiences to fans.” That answer held for two weeks. Then the platform went live.

The Ownership Structure Nobody Was Talking About Loudly Enough

The licence timeline was not the only thing drawing attention. ADI Predictstreet sits underneath Finstreet, which belongs to Sirius International Holding, the digital arm of Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company. IHC connects to UAE Vice President Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, one of the most powerful figures in the Gulf, which gives the whole venture a level of financial backing most prediction market start-ups could not dream of. Finstreet’s own CEO, Sunidhi Pasan, Oxford-trained in law and finance, built the company from scratch through eight separate ADGM regulatory licences.

Psarrakis himself carries a heavyweight CV. Harvard-trained in financial economics, seven years inside the European Parliament as a monetary policy expert, and a named drafter of the EU’s MiCA regulation and DLT Pilot Regime. That kind of profile would ordinarily be the story. Instead, Josimar mentioned another link between Psarrakis and Eva Kaili, a former vice president of the European Parliament, who was also arrested in the Qatargate case in 2022, which arose due to the Qatar World Cup. Psarrakis denies any involvement. Kaili denies wrongdoing. Neither denial has closed the conversation.

Why the Fanatics Deal Is More Than a Distribution Agreement?

Getting into the US market was never going to be simple for a Gibraltar-licensed start-up. The way ADI Predictstreet pulled it off says a lot about how this industry is being built right now. The American base of operations operates through Fanatics Markets, the prediction division of Fanatics, which became the first major sports betting company in the US to come up with its own predictions product ahead of FanDuel and DraftKings in December 2025. The co-branded FIFA World Cup 2026 Hub, which was in existence within the Fanatics Markets application from the end of May, now serves 23 states and four territories.

The real significance is buried in the regulatory plumbing. Fanatics Markets channels its products through CDNA, a CFTC-registered exchange and clearinghouse, with contracts flowing through Paragon Global Markets, a CFTC-registered introducing broker and National Futures Association member that Fanatics bought in July 2025. Because the product sits inside a federal derivatives framework rather than a state sports betting licence, ADI Predictstreet can reach users in Texas and California, two states where online sportsbooks still cannot legally operate. That is not a minor detail.

Matt King, CEO of Fanatics Betting and Gaming, did not frame this as a commercial transaction. “When ADI Predictstreet was looking for a US partner, it was a natural conversation given the scale of our reach to fans,” he said. “We are excited to bring that experience to Americans this summer. The World Cup Hub gives fans a more immersive way to follow the tournament in real time, combining content, data and prediction markets all in one experience.” For Fanatics, which built its brand on merchandise and trading cards long before it touched sports betting, this is the next chapter of the same logic.

Psarrakis was direct about what the US means to the company. “As the primary host country for the FIFA World Cup 2026, the US is a strategically important market, and we greatly value the long-term opportunity this collaboration provides to strengthen the presence of the ADI Predictstreet brand in the region,” he said. Not just a tournament play, then. A foothold.

Users can fund accounts with crypto or traditional currency, and in jurisdictions where the streaming rights allow it, all 104 World Cup matches play inside the same interface where trades are placed. The World Cup Hub pulls in official FIFA player data, tournament news, and third-party feeds from Sportradar alongside the markets themselves. Running parallel to all of this, the DAZN partnership announced in April weaves ADI Predictstreet’s predictions and sentiment tracking directly into live streams, with the arrangement designed to outlast the tournament and extend across DAZN’s broader sports portfolio.

Back in May, when the platform was still dark, the company had already mapped out where it intended to go. “In certain jurisdictions, we have developed strategic partnerships with appropriately licensed and regulated operators,” the statement read. “We have already announced partnerships with DAZN, the world’s leading sports entertainment platform, which will integrate ADI Predictstreet experiences across its global sports entertainment ecosystem, and Fanatics Markets to deliver a co-branded FIFA World Cup 2026 Hub experience for fans in 23 US states and four territories. Together with our FIFA partnership, these collaborations reflect our commitment to delivering innovative forecasting and fan engagement experiences to audiences around the world while maintaining the highest standards of compliance, integrity, and consumer protection.” The platform was not yet live when those words were written. Now it is.

The Infrastructure Decision That Most Coverage Missed

Buried underneath the launch headlines, a separate announcement on 9 June addressed the question that prediction market sceptics always ask first: how does settlement actually work? ADI Predictstreet named Chainlink as its exclusive oracle infrastructure, with the Chainlink Runtime Environment handling market creation, resolution, and settlement using official FIFA data automatically. When you have dozens of matches running simultaneously and millions of positions open across them, getting that process right is not optional.

Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs, put the value of the arrangement plainly. “Chainlink provides the orchestration infrastructure that unlocks real-time prediction markets that settle with high-quality data and lead to fair outcomes and fast payouts,” he said. “We look forward to helping redefine how fans interact with live sports.” In a space still haunted by disputes over how and when markets close, that kind of automated, data-anchored settlement is the difference between a product people trust and one they abandon after one bad experience.

The Chainlink choice also pulls the curtain back on what ADI Chain actually is. Built on zkSync’s Atlas and Airbender stack, it runs as an Ethereum layer-2 network with EVM compatibility and zero-knowledge proof support. The business focus leans into real-world assets, stablecoins, including a UAE dirham stablecoin that is still in the pipeline, and compliance infrastructure for emerging markets. Predictstreet is the first consumer-facing product that has ever run on it. The World Cup, in that sense, is a live stress test for the entire underlying network.

When the FIFA deal was announced in April, ADI Foundation CEO Andrey Lazorenko reached for the biggest frame he could find. “The FIFA World Cup is where billions of people share one moment at the same time,” he said. “With this historic announcement of the first consumer-facing ecosystem project on ADI Chain, ADI Predictstreet gives fans a way to partake in the history of football at a scale nobody has done before, all powered by ADI Chain’s infrastructure.” Markets agreed, at least briefly. The ADI token hit an all-time high of $4.54 that week, up 12 per cent.

The compliance stack is layered. Identity checks and AML screening run through Sumsub; blockchain analytics and wallet monitoring sit with Global Ledger; transaction surveillance goes through Modulus. Market settlement draws on Sportradar, Stats Perform, and LSports Data as official and independent data sources. For a platform entering a space that regulators are watching closely, that list of names carries weight.

Psarrakis on What ADI Predictstreet Actually Is

Psarrakis has never described ADI Predictstreet as a betting product, and he did not start on launch day. “ADI Predictstreet was created to redefine how fans engage with live events,” he said. “As we go live ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026, we are proud to deliver a secure, regulated, and globally scalable platform that combines technology, prediction markets, and real-time participation at an unprecedented level. Billions of fans worldwide will engage with this summer’s historic tournament, alongside millions in person across North America. We look forward to introducing them all to a new and exciting way of engaging with the FIFA World Cup 2026.” Fan engagement. Not gambling. The difference is crucial to the discussions taking place within different regulatory jurisdictions.

Gamblers can bet based on the results of match-ups, tournament statistics, player performance, and individual moments from all 104 matches involving 48 teams in a tournament hosted by 16 cities in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. ADI Predictstreet also handles the presenting partnership for FIFA’s free-to-play bracket challenge, which pulls in a different audience entirely. The whole competition runs until 19 July, when the final takes place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. That is five weeks of continuous market activity for a platform that was running in beta six days ago.

What Going Live Does Not Resolve?

The US prediction market already has Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com, Coinbase, FanDuel Predicts, DraftKings Predictions, PrizePicks, and Underdog crowding it, most of them with months of live trading behind them. Kalshi and Polymarket had record money flowing in before a single World Cup ball was kicked. ADI Predictstreet walks into that room carrying FIFA’s official branding at the exact moment the category has exploded in the US. The branding is real. Whether it converts into market share against operators with deeper roots is a different question.

UK access unresolved. Global partners unnamed. A CEO whose background is being picked apart publicly. A platform that has been live for days, not months. These are not small risks to carry into the biggest sporting event on the planet. But the window is real, and it is narrow. The World Cup comes around once every four years. ADI Predictstreet has traded its way to the front of a very crowded room at a very specific moment. The next five weeks will not just test the platform. They will settle the question of whether this entire build-distribution-before-product strategy was visionary or reckless.

What This Launch Actually Tells You About the Prediction Market Business?

Watch what ADI Predictstreet did between April and June and you get a precise picture of how this industry operates right now. Rights holders want new fan engagement formats and they want them fast; operators with the right regulatory framing and the right financial architecture can walk into those deals before a product even exists. The FIFA partnership did not happen because the platform was not ready. It happened because the concept was sellable, the Gibraltar licence gave it a regulatory story, and IHC’s backing made the financial risk feel manageable. The product was always the follow-through, not the foundation.

The Fanatics CFTC route is the shrewdest part of the whole structure. It places ADI Predictstreet inside a federal derivatives framework rather than the state-by-state sportsbook maze, which means it sits alongside traditional betting rather than competing with it directly. Chainlink handling settlement removes the dispute risk that has damaged other platforms. Both choices point to a team that understood, before launch, that the infrastructure questions would matter as much as the FIFA logo.

UK access unresolved. Global partners unnamed. A CEO whose background is being picked apart publicly. A platform that has been live for days, not months. These are not small risks to carry into the biggest sporting event on the planet. But the window is real, and it is narrow. The World Cup comes around once every four years. ADI Predictstreet has traded its way to the front of a very crowded room at a very specific moment. The next five weeks will not just test the platform. They will settle the question of whether this entire build-distribution-before-product strategy was visionary or reckless.