ADI Predictstreet’s Ticket Giveaway Fumble Exposes FIFA’s $150 Million Gamble

Vukašin Petrović thought he had won a ticket to the FIFA World Cup. The 24-year-old crypto trader from Serbia had racked up points on a free prediction game and was told he was a winner. The ticket never showed up.

He is one of a growing number of frustrated users the Wall Street Journal identified around ADI Predictstreet, the company FIFA anointed as its first-ever Official Prediction Market Partner. Three months into a multi-year deal reportedly worth $150 million, the platform is fielding complaints, drawing regulatory scrutiny in Germany and trading a sliver of the volume its much bigger rivals post on the very same World Cup markets.

A Prize That Never Arrived

ADI Predictstreet built its World Cup push around free games as much as real-money trading contracts. On June 18, it launched a free-to-play tab inside DAZN, the streaming platform carrying the tournament across most of the world outside the United States.

Fans who called match outcomes correctly could climb a leaderboard and win exclusive prizes, including match tickets, no purchase required.

Petrović was one of them. The Journal reported he was told he had won a ticket to the tournament. It never came. The paper describes a growing number of ADI Predictstreet users venting about the platform’s rocky start.

The ticket saga is not an isolated glitch. A Turkish complaint-tracking site, Xolvie, has separately logged users confused about whether the platform was fully live or still in closed testing, with official announcements often clashing with what people actually experienced.

FIFA’s First-Ever Prediction Market Partner

FIFA announced the deal in April, naming ADI Predictstreet the first-ever Official Partner for the prediction market category, built on FIFA’s own historical match data.

Prediction markets work on a simple mechanic. Users buy contracts betting on a yes-or-no outcome, and each one settles at $1 if the prediction is right, or nothing if it’s wrong.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino framed the tie-up as part of the federation’s push toward fan engagement, calling it “continually enhancing the fan experience and embracing innovation that brings supporters closer to the game.”

Bloomberg reported in April that the arrangement was worth about $150 million, a figure Front Office Sports later cited its own sources confirming. As part of the deal, ADI Predictstreet also became presenting partner of FIFA’s global bracket challenge.

A Small Company for a Big Stage

The company also struck a separate deal with Fanatics Markets to reach American bettors, giving it access to just 23 U.S. states rather than a full national rollout, since ADI’s own crypto-settled infrastructure isn’t licensed to operate directly in the country.

A Gibraltar License Granted in Record Time

Behind the FIFA branding sits a company that barely had a functioning product when the deal was signed. Gibraltar’s regulator licensed ADI Predictstreet, operated by Predict Street Limited, as a betting intermediary on March 26, the first prediction market operator licensed anywhere in Europe.

The company said it would launch on April 9. Technically, it did. But the markets sat empty. Real trading did not begin until June 8, just three days before the World Cup’s opening match.

“ADI Predictstreet was created to redefine how fans engage with live events,” said Dimitrios Psarrakis, the company’s chief executive, around that launch.

The company is backed by the Abu Dhabi royal family through parent Finstreet Limited, part of Sirius International Holding, according to industry publication iGaming Business. It never trademarked its own intellectual property, and its European debut ran into immediate pushback from national regulators, according to Norwegian outlet Josimar.

Josimar’s reporting, picked up by Inside World Football, raised separate questions about people connected to the company:

• A frontman tied to the operation paid a six-figure sum to settle an insider-trading accusation in India, Josimar reported.
• The company’s new chief executive had ties to Qatargate, one of the European Union’s largest lobbying scandals.
• Its head of anti-money laundering compliance accepted a two-year ban on financial activity in Gibraltar after overseeing AML failings at a previous employer.

FIFA has said its partnership with ADI Predictstreet followed normal governance procedures.

Why Has ADI’s Trading Volume Barely Registered?

ADI Predictstreet’s tournament-winner market has drawn roughly $57,000 in trading volume, a fraction of the $549 million on Kalshi and more than $3 billion on Polymarket for the same wager, according to a Front Office Sports analysis. Despite FIFA’s backing, fans have overwhelmingly kept trading with the platforms ADI was brought in to challenge.

The platform has also stumbled operationally. It kept a market open on which team would win Group A even after Mexico had already secured the top spot, letting users keep trading an outcome no longer in doubt, per the same reporting.

Exact volume figures for ADI Predictstreet’s own contracts are not published the way Kalshi’s and Polymarket’s are, making the gap harder to independently verify beyond the reported tournament-winner numbers.

Germany Shuts the Door

Germany’s gambling authority, the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL), Germany’s joint regulator for gambling across its federal states, opened a review into whether ADI Predictstreet’s World Cup advertising breached national law. The company holds no German gambling license, even as its branding ran across pitch-side boards during German broadcasts of the tournament.

ADI Predictstreet responded by blocking German users outright.

the provider has since reacted and blocked access to its service for users from Germany

a GGL spokesperson told German media, following the regulator’s intervention. ADI Predictstreet had previously maintained it ran no marketing campaigns specifically targeted at German consumers.

The GGL’s move came days after nine European gambling regulators issued a joint warning about prediction markets generally, citing risks including inadequate player safeguards, gambling-related harm, market manipulation, fraud and murky settlement practices.

Why Did Kalshi End Up Partnering With Its Own Rival?

Kalshi and Polymarket reportedly passed on FIFA’s prediction market sponsorship over its price tag before ADI Predictstreet took the deal. Ten weeks later, Kalshi struck a separate co-branding agreement with ADI itself, attaching its name to the same World Cup rights it once walked away from, according to Front Office Sports reporter Ben Horney.

The two companies announced the tie-up in late June, building a co-branded World Cup hub for the knockout stage. Kalshi is paying ADI Predictstreet under the arrangement, though the exact terms haven’t been disclosed, a figure well short of the original $150 million FIFA deal.

“The World Cup is the largest stage for any brand,” Kalshi co-founder and chief executive Tarek Mansour said of the agreement.

Kalshi has reported daily World Cup trading above $1 billion during the tournament’s first two weeks and holds roughly 62% of total prediction market trading volume industry-wide, with Polymarket close behind at around 28%, according to market-tracking data. ADI Predictstreet’s own standalone platform does not disclose comparable totals.

The Multi-Year Deal Outlasts One Rocky World Cup

ADI Predictstreet does not describe any of this as a rocky start. In a July 2 release, the company said it had completed the initial phase of its Gibraltar regulatory framework and had won permission to expand beyond football into new markets once the tournament ends, spanning entertainment, culture, weather and select political events.

The FIFA partnership is a multi-year agreement expected to run into the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil, regardless of how this tournament’s numbers land.

Users chasing unresolved issues, including missing prizes, can send a formal complaint with account and transaction details to the company’s dedicated inbox, which aims to reply within 24 business hours.

The World Cup final is set for July 19. Petrović, for his part, is still waiting on his ticket.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment or gambling advice. Prediction markets and crypto-settled trading carry real financial risk, including possible loss of funds, and are regulated differently across jurisdictions. Readers should consult a licensed professional and verify current regulatory status before using any prediction market platform. Figures in this article are accurate as of publication.