SBC To Launch Lisbon Standalone Prediction Markets Forum
Event organiser SBC has confirmed it will run a standalone Global Prediction Markets Forum in Lisbon on October 1, 2026, according to the event's official listing on SBC Events, as prediction markets increasingly cross paths with the regulated sports betting industry.
The forum runs alongside SBC Summit and the Affiliate Leaders Summit that week, and requires a dedicated ticket priced at €399, available to both SBC Summit delegates and attendees joining exclusively for the forum.
The event will be held at the Myriad by SANA hotel on Lisbon's waterfront. According to the official event page, the forum is designed to bring together the operators, regulators, investors and policymakers currently navigating how prediction markets fit within, or outside, existing gambling and financial regulation.
Sessions target regulatory grey areas
SBC's listing sets out a running order built around the core legal and commercial tensions in the sector: how prediction markets differ from sports betting products in practice, how regulators in the US and Europe are approaching event contracts, and how the industry can protect players while the category is still being defined.
Additional sessions are billed as covering the blurred lines between sports betting and financial trading, and what the organiser calls the question of whether the sector is "on the cusp of boom or bust."
Attendees also get access to three dedicated networking sessions built around the forum, plus welcome refreshments and closing drinks, according to the event listing.
A fast-growing but contested category
Prediction markets have moved from a niche US phenomenon into a live regulatory flashpoint for the wider gambling and financial industries over the past 18 months, drawing in operators, exchanges and state gaming regulators simultaneously in a way few other product categories have in recent memory.
The forum's launch reflects how central prediction markets have become to gambling industry conferences over the past year, as platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket have expanded into sports and political event contracts while facing legal challenges from state gaming regulators including Nevada's. A US federal appeals court ruled against Kalshi's sports event contracts in a decision handed down on August 28, 2026, underlining the regulatory uncertainty the Lisbon forum is designed to address.
SBC positioned the event as separate from its main betting and gaming programming, describing prediction markets as "one of the fastest-evolving sectors in betting and finance" that now demands dedicated industry discussion rather than a handful of conference sessions folded into a wider agenda.
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The standalone format mirrors how SBC and other event organisers have previously spun out emerging verticals, such as esports and affiliate marketing, into their own conference tracks once they reached sufficient scale.
The Global Prediction Markets Forum takes place during SBC Summit week, giving operators, suppliers and regulators already travelling to Lisbon for the main event a direct route into the prediction markets discussion without a separate trip.
SBC Summit itself typically draws several thousand operator, supplier and regulator attendees to Lisbon each autumn, giving the standalone forum ticket an existing pool of industry visitors already in the city to convert into attendees.
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